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UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 


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LINCOLN IN 1865. 


From a rare negative privately owned. 


Che Academy Classics 


Pe NRG.©) EN 
ADDRESSES AND LETTERS 


BOE DsrOR, SCHOOL USE 


BY 


JOHN M. AVENT 


PRINCIPAL OF CURTIS HIGH SCHOOL 
FORMERLY HEAD OF THE DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH 
JULIA RICHMAN HIGH SCHOOL 
NEW YORK CITY 


ALLYN AND BACON 


BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO 
ATLANTA SAN FRANCISCO 


COPYRIGHT, 1924 
BY ALLYN AND BACON 


Norwood jpress 
J.S. Cushing Co. — Berwick & Smith Co. 
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. 


3 ix | ee ‘ee 

Se 

: ps 

= 

US 

a PREFACE 

‘ 

© 

= In the re-valuation of American literature few things 


are more certain than that the addresses and letters of 
. Abraham Lincoln will be accorded high rank. Daniel 
3 Webster will probably remain our supreme orator, and 
» his Reply to Hayne the high-water mark of eloquence 
> in this country. But Lincoln is more than an orator: 
) he is our great interpreter of democracy. His speeches 
, were struck off in the heat of his labors in the days that 
« tested that democracy in the furnace of a great civil 
> war. “Beyond his own country,” says Lord Charn- 
~ wood, ‘“‘some of us recall his name as the greatest among 
., those associated with the cause of popular government.” 
+. As English constitutional government found a brilliant 
. exponent in Edmund Burke, American constitutional 
+ government found one in Abraham Lincoln. 
3 Hence, the current tendency in high schools to give 
__ to the study of Lincoln as much time as was formerly 
4 given to Burke, seems entirely wise. With the same 

inevitable logic, and the same constant reliance on 
J universal principles, that make a study of Burke so 
~ fruitful, Lincoln is, in addition, simpler, more direct, 
‘and never consciously rhetorical. Moreover, a study 
2 of Lincoln’s speeches cannot fail to reveal a steady 
~ growth in the power of thought and expression that 
- came only as a result of a determination to grasp his 

lll 


~ 


iv Preface 


subject, to be heard, and to be understood. The 
Peoria speech, for example, is his rough draft of the 
great Cooper Union address. Then too, to know 
Lincoln thoroughly is to know the most vital part of 
the history of our country; the serious student will 
find here a rich field for further reading. 

One of the chief aims of this volume is to provide 
abundant material for a comparative study both of 
speeches and letters. As a letter writer Lincoln de- 
serves study for his ability to say momentous things 
with simplicity and power. All the world knows the 
letters to Horace Greeley and Mrs. Bixby. But fine 
as these are — in widely different ways — the letters to 
Hooker, Schurz, Grant, Conkling, Hodges, and Brown- 
ing, are remarkable for a racy idiom, an unfailing 
sense of word values, and a courageous facing of facts. 

Emphasis has been placed upon the questions for 
study and report toward the end of the volume, rather 
than upon extended notes. Sufficient explanatory 
matter has been given in passing, however, to prevent 
stumbling. A chronological arrangement, together 
with the introductions to each selection, makes the 
book in effect a biography, which it is hoped, will prove 
useful not only as a text for study in English literature, 
but also as a source book in American history. 


J. M.A. 


FOREWORD TO THE STUDENT 


WHENEVER we try to explain why Lincoln had such 
extraordinary influence over the minds of the men who 
heard him, we find that we can state it briefly by saying 
that Lincoln said just what he meant, and meant just 
what he said. ‘‘I am never easy when I am handling a 
thought,’ he said, ‘‘till I have bounded it north, and 
bounded it south, and bounded it east, and bounded it 
west.”’ He had no patience with the muddled thinking 
that could argue “that a horse chestnut is a chestnut 
horse.””’ Add to this his knack of knowing how to 
adjust his talk to the audience he was facing, and we 
account for much of his power. We must not forget, 
of course, to include the character behind the language ; 
the man who was willing to live by, and if necessary, 
to die by, what he said. When such skill in the use of 
language, and such strength of character are united in 
one person, mankind simply must pay homage. It is 
inevitable. 

There is no mystery in Lincoln’s method of getting 
results: he chose the best models of writing and speak- 
ing that he could find, and he labored to make his own 
bear comparison with these. As he held firmly, in his 
political principles, to the Declaration of Independence 
and the Constitution, so in language he followed Henry 
Clay, Daniel Webster, and the Old and New Testa- 
ments. He habitually sought criticism and advice on 

Vv 


Vi Foreword to the Student 


both the form and content of important papers, readily 
adopting suggestions that appealed to his judgment. 
He had a sensitive regard for the values of specific words, 
and strove to get the precise shade of meaning. Though 
he read few books, these he read with such studious 
care that they became part of him. 

And so, in some very important respects, the study of 
Lincoln is a study in English language and literature. 
To a considerable extent, indeed, he is a product of our 
literature ; and in some instances he produced what we 
shall continue to cherish as masterpieces of our language. 


CONTENTS 


BIBLIOGRAPHY . ; , : ‘ : : 
IntTRoDuUcTION: A Brigr Mermorr or LINCOLN . 


ADDRESSES AND LETTERS 

ANNOUNCEMENT OF LINCOLN’S CANDIDACY FOR THE 
LEGISLATURE : ? : : , : ‘ 

FrRoM THE ADDRESS TO THE PEOPLE OF SANGAMON 
County : : 

PouiticaL VIEWS IN 1836 

PROTEST AGAINST SLAVERY : : : : 

. Letters To His Law Partner WixtuiAM H. HERNDON 

LeTTers To JoHN D. JOHNSTON 

THe ProrIA SPEECH 

LETTER TO GEORGE ROBERTSON : : , 

SPEECH AT THE REPUBLICAN STATE CONVENTION, SPRING- 
FIELD : : 

THE CHALLENGE TO DovuGLas 

Tue First Lincotn-DovuGusas DEBATE 

THE Rea IssuE : 

Letter To H. D. SHarpPe . : 

THe CoLuMBUS SPEECH : 

LINCOLN’s AUTOBIOGRAPHY . : : 5 

THE Cooper UNION SPEECH. 

Letter TO THURLOW WEED. 

FAREWELL ADDRESS AT SPRINGFIELD 

ADDRESS IN INDEPENDENCE HALL, PHILADELPHIA 

First INAuGURAL ADDRESS ; 

LINCOLN’s REPLY TO SECRETARY SEWARD 

LETTER TO REVERDY JOHNSON 


Lerrer TO Mayor RAMSEY 
vil 


xill 


“JOU BS 


106 
109 
138 
139 
140 
142 
155 
158 
160 


Viil Contents 


PAGE 
LETTER To O. H. BRownina : : : 3 aU 
LETTER TO GENERAL HUNTER d : OOo 
LETTER TO GENERAL GEORGE B. McCim.tan ; eelGo 
LETTER TO REVERDY JOHNSON . ; : “ . 166 
TELEGRAM TO GOVERNOR ANDREW , 4 ‘ mos 
LETTER TO Horack GREELEY : ‘ J ; . 168 
TELEGRAMS TO McCLELLAN . : : A : mot WN, 
REPLY TO A COMMITTEE FROM THE RELIGIOUS DENOM- 
INATIONS OF CHICAGO : : : é ‘ AY: 
LETTER TO CarL SCHURZ : : : : : eng 
LINCOLN AND THE DESERTERS 5 ‘ ; ‘ ae He 
LETTER TO GENERAL N. P. Banks : ; . 179 
LETTER TO WILLIAM H. SEWARD AND SALMON P. Caan 181 
EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION 2 : ‘ ’ Peer Ne! 
LETTER TO GENERAL JOHN A. McCLERNAND : jalan 
LETTER TO MANCHESTER WORKINGMEN , P Lr 
LETTER TO JOSEPH HOOKER . , ; : . 189 
LETTER TO GOVERNOR HoRATIO SEYMOUR . : seek 
TELEGRAMS TO GENERAL JOSEPH HOOKER . ; . 192 
LETTER TO GENERAL U. 8S. GRANT ; ; ; ELLOS 
LETTER TO JAMES C. CONKLING . . ; : . 194 
LETTERS TO JAMES H. HACKETT . , : E 2200 
THE GETTYSBURG ADDRESS . é : : ; fone) 
LETTER TO SALMON P. CHASE . d ; ; 2 4203 
Lettrer. To A. G. Hopeks . : ; : ‘ ae 20 
Two TELEGRAMS TO THE FAMILY . : ; ; «208 
LETTER TO GENERAL U. S. GRANT , ; ; eZ 
TELEGRAM TO GENERAL U. S.’ GRANT . ! ; 5 UD 
Letrer To Mrs. BrixBy , . ; : ‘ 1, olO 
LeTTeR TO GENERAL GRANT. 3 ; ; : weeU 
SECOND INAUGURAL ADDRESS . : ; ; ore kl 
Tue Last Pusiic ADDRESS . : , , . » 214 
CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. k , , : ‘ ners 


QUESTIONS FOR STUDY AND REPORT ’ : Go20 


LISTS OP ALLUSTRATIONS 


Lincoln in 1865. : : : : Frontispiece 


FACING PAGE 


Lincoln’s Birthplace : ; 

Lincoln Memorial, Washington, D. Or 

Interior of Lincoln Memorial 

Statue of Lincoln in Lincoln Memorial . 

The Memorial as It Faces the Washington Manne 

Borglum’s Head of Lincoln : ‘ 

Statue of Lincoln by Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Chicas 

Lincoln at Antietam : : 

Statue of Lincoln by Daniel Chester Frelich Lincoln, 
Nebraska . ; 

Borglum’s Lincoln, Newark, New iene 


1X 


10 
26 
50 
72 
88 
110 
142 
170 


202 
214 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


_ Tue letters and addresses in this volume are used by 
courtesy of Mr. George Haven Putnam, and Mr. 
William H. Wise, publishers, respectively, of the Con- 
stitutional Edition of the Writings of Abraham Lincoln, 
and the Centenary Edition of the Life and Works of 
Abraham Lincoln. Among the shorter biographies, 
those by Nicolay, John T. Morse Jr., Norman Hapgood, 
Nathaniel Stephenson, and Lord Charnwood, have 
proved extremely valuable, each for a distinct phase of 
the subject. The Charnwood is unquestionably ‘‘a 
masterpiece about a masterpiece.” For the historical 
background of the period, James Ford Rhodes’ History 
of the United States from 1850 to 1896, is, of course, 
indispensable. In collateral reading a great deal of 
interesting material can be found in the history of the 
newspapers of the time; for this, Payne, History of 
Journalism makes a very readable introduction. 


xl 


INTRODUCTION 


A BRIEF MEMOIR OF LINCOLN 


Boyhood in Kentucky 


‘THe facts of Lincoln’s boyhood and young manhood 
are important chiefly because they help us understand 
the man. He got the frontier training, with all the 
harshness, all the direct dealing of the wilderness, and 
all the disadvantages unavoidable in a crude society. 
The ax helve, the plow, and the scythe were in his hand 
as winter gave way to spring and spring to summer, 
year after year, in Kentucky and Indiana, for the whole 
period that a boy of to-day spends in school and college. 

The farm on which he was born near Hodgenville, 
Kentucky, on February 12, 1809, and to which his 
shiftless father had taken his mother, Nancy Hanks, 
and his sister, was a miserable affair. Some rolling 
hills with thin soil, such as are found in the poorer sec- 
tions of Tennessee, Virginia, or Kentucky to this day, 
a cabin, and a spring of water — this was his first home. 
From this his father moved to another “ farm’”’ nearby 
— Thomas was a restless fellow — and then hearing 
tales of the country farther west and feeling the urge 
that everyone seemed to feel at the time, he put his 
belongings on a flat-boat, went down the Ohio, landed 
on the Indiana shore, and struck inland for sixteen 
miles through the forest. 


xii 


X1V Introduction 


Life in Indiana 


Life in the new home in Indiana was, at least for a 
time, more rigorous. Trees had to be chopped down 
and land cleared before corn could be planted. The 
corn then had to be carried six miles to a grist mill 
(worked by hand) to be ground into meal before it 
could be made into bread. ‘This chore fell to the boy. 
A cabin, too, had to be built. Whether the father was 
overwhelmed with the other labors, or merely lazy, the 
fact is that he built a three-walled affair, open to the 
weather on one side, and without a chimney. In this 
partial shelter the family lived through the winter. 
But the rigor of the life began to tell on the mother, and 
in the following winter she succumbed, leaving the two 
children (Abraham was then nine) in the care of the 
father. In later life Lincoln said of his mother, “ I 
owe all I am to her.”’ 

The following year Thomas Lincoln returned to 
Kentucky and married a widow named Sally Bush 
Johnston, a woman of unusual energy, tact, and sym- 
pathy. She brought to the Lincoln home in Indiana 
some much needed household gear and aroused her 
husband to finish a new cabin which he had begun. 
“She proved a good and kind mother,” was Lincoln’s 
tribute to her. 

The new settlement gradually began to emerge from 
the wilderness. Roads were cut through, and these 
formed a cross-road a mile or so from the Lincoln place. 
A store or two followed, and one or two schools of the 
crude backwoods type. In these, Lincoln estimated 
that he spent — in all his youth —less than one year. 


Introduction XV 


He did manage, however, with creditable persistence 
to get hold of a few books and these he read and studied 
during the long months when there was neither chop- 
ping, nor plowing, gathering, nor shucking to be done. 
Among these books the Bible, Pilgrim’s Progress, Rob- 
inson Crusoe, and Alsop’s Fables made a lasting im- 
pression on both his thinking and writing. Until he 
was twenty-one — with the exception of a trip down 
the Mississippi to New Orleans in a flat-boat — his life 
was that of the usual pioneer group. He grew exceed- 
ingly tall — six feet four; was a good ax-man and a 
good wrestler. There is no reason to believe that he 
held himself aloof from the pranks of the boys of his 
settlement. | 


“ Of Age” in Illinois 


At this time, when Lincoln had just come of age, his 
roving father again packed his household and made 
another move, this time with ox-teams. He stopped 
on the bank of the Sangamon River, where Lincoln 
once more helped to settle the family in a new home. 
Another cabin was built, enough rails split to fence ten 
or more acres of ground, and the ground was ‘“‘ broken ”’ 
and sown. Then Lincoln made a start for himself. He 
hired himself to build and take a boat to New Orleans, 
and when he returned, he hired himself again to the 
same employer to take charge of a store in New Salem. 

Here he seems to have had plenty of leisure. We find 
him lying on the counter with a bolt of cloth under his 
head and Kirkham’s “ Grammar” in his hand. In a 
short time he announced in the local paper that he was 
a candidate for the legislature ; then he enlisted for the 


XV1 Introduction 


Black Hawk War; and returned to be defeated in the 
election. He bought a store on credit, failed as a store- 
keeper, was appointed postmaster of the town, did some 
surveying, and again announced his candidacy for the 
legislature. This time (18384) he was elected, and in 
the succeeding three elections was returned, spending 
eight years in the lower house. 


In the Legislature 


In the legislature of Illinois from 1834 to 1842, Lin- 
coln was a respected, but not a distinguished, member. 
There is no evidence that he was more than just “a 
good Whig,’ who was interested, first, in getting the 
capital moved from Vandalia to Springfield, and then 
in internal improvements of the sort that seemed to 
appeal to men everywhere in the younger states. 
Nevertheless, he did step out of the ranks of the regulars 
to make a protest against slavery (1837); he was 
ambitious enough to study law and be admitted to the 
bar (18387), and he was liked well enough to get the Whig 
vote for the speakership. 

It was while he was thus absorbed in the usual rather 
commonplace activities of a member of the state 
legislature, that the resistance to slavery in the nation 
took the form of violent and uncompromising abolition- 
ism, under the leadership of William Lloyd Garrison in 
Boston, and Elijah Lovejoy in Illinois. Garrison, who 
started the Liberator with the announcement, ‘ I 
will be as harsh as truth, as uncompromising as justice,” 
was dragged through the streets with a rope around his 
neck. In the same year negroes in Southampton 
County, Virginia, under the leadership of Nat Turner, 


Introduction XVli 


a negro preacher, massacred sixty white people, most 
of them women and children. The South accused the 
Abolitionists. South Carolina offered a reward of five 
thousand dollars for Garrison, dead or alive; Lovejoy, 
who persisted in printing his newspaper after his press 
had been wrecked three times, was shot to death in 
Alton, about sixty miles from where Lincoln was a law- 
maker. At this time (1836), Congress, alarmed, passed 
a“ gag ”’ resolution shutting off all discussion of slavery. 
For eight years this measure smothered any attempt 
to bring up the subject that was vexing the country. 


Slavery Agitation. Mexican War 


The agitation for and against slavery was ceaseless. 
Both sides were dissatisfied with the Missouri Com- 
promise after twenty-five years. The North by the 
Wilmot Proviso of 1846 wished to exclude slavery from 
any part of any territory acquired from Mexico. Half 
of this territory was south of 36° 30’ and if the principle 
of the Compromise were extended, would be open to 
slavery. The slavery camp, led by Jefferson Davis, 
met this advance by introducing a bill to protect slave 
holders far north in Oregon, where by a similar extension 
of the 1820 Compromise, slavery would be excluded. 
Meantime, both parties in the presidential campaign 
of 1848 attempted to straddle the issue. The Whigs 
nominated a Southerner who was a big slave owner, 
and the hero of the war that brought more prospective 
slave territory into the Union — Zachary Taylor of 
Louisiana. The Democrats named Lewis Cass, a 
Northerner who believed in ‘‘ squatter sovereignty ”’ ; 
that is, that as each state applied for admission the 


XVIII Introduction 


people of that state should decide whether it should 
be slave or free. The political managers of both 
parties, it is evident, were making a bid for the Southern 
vote and struggling to hush discordant cries. 

At this point the Free Soil Party was organized and 
squarely faced the issue. ‘‘ The settled policy of this 
government,” they declared, “is not to extend, nation- 
alize, or encourage slavery, but to limit, localize, and 
discourage it.”’ These Free Soilers were not abolition- 
ists. They did not, like Garrison, hold that the Con- 
stitution ‘“‘ was a covenant with death and an agree- 
ment with hell.’ They would preserve the Union 
created by the Constitution and limit slavery through 
the Constitution. The new party failed to elect its 
candidate, but it did something more important. 
The new Congress (1849) was divided between Whigs 
and Democrats by a margin of only seven, while the 
Free Soilers had thirteen members. This gave them 
the whip hand. ) 


Compromise of 1850 


The new Congress was split into two factions over 
five questions: 

(1) Shall California (just settled by the rush for 
gold) be a free state, or kept a territory open to slavery? 

(2) Shall the Missouri Compromise (allowing slavery) 
or the Wilmot Proviso (excluding it) be applied to New 
Mexico? 

(3) What shall be the boundaries of Texas (a slave 
state) ? 

(4) Shall slaves be bought and sold in the District of 
Columbia — at the very steps of the Capitol? 


Introduction x1x 


(5) Shall escaped slaves — or those alleged to be 
such — be sent back to slavery without trial? 

The dissension called forth Henry Clay, now in his 
seventy-third year, to effect a settlement that would 
satisfy everyone. This he did in the Compromise Bill 
of 1850. In March of that year, in the Senate, there 
were delivered the greatest series of speeches in the 
history of our country. Clay had spoken for harmony ; 
on the fourth of March, Calhoun, too old and too ill 
to speak, hurled his last defiance in his address which 
was read by his colleague; three days later Webster 
came to the aid of Clay in his famous seventh of March 
speech and made a stirring plea for the preservation of 
the Union; four days later, William H. Seward, of 
New York, opposing Webster, Clay, and Calhoun, 
attacked the principle of compromise, and declared 
his hostility to slavery because of a ‘“‘ higher law ”’ 
than the Constitution. Salmon P. Chase of Ohio 
followed this with another savage attack upon the 
principle of compromise. 

For more than five months the conflict raged. In 
the meantime, the aged Calhoun, the irreconcilable, 
passed away; and early in July, President Taylor, 
who had opposed any concession to slavery, followed. 
The death of the President placed Vice-President Fill- 
more, a friend of the compromise, in a position to help 
the bill through, and it passed. The question of slavery 
now seemed settled permanently, and the country sank 
back in relief and exhaustion. The Whigs and Demo- 
crats in the following election (1852) could find no issue, 
and the Democratic candidate, Franklin Pierce, of New 
Hampshire, an intimate friend of Nathaniel Hawthorne, 


XxX Introduction 


was swept into office. ‘‘ A sense of repose and serenity,” 
he said, ‘“‘has been restored throughout the country.” 


The Kansas-Nebraska Bill 


The years from 1850 to 1854, were not a real peace, 
however. They were an armistice. The people, no 
less than the leaders, were for the most part worn out, 
and the quarrel ceased from sheer fatigue. Two years 
after the passage of the bill, Henry Clay, the great 
compromiser, passed away; and Webster, who sac- 
rificed his hope of the Presidency in the seventh of 
March speech, died in the same year. But despite 
everything that Clay or Webster had done, no basis 
for permanent peace, as we shall see, had been found. 
The house was still divided against itself and an issue 
was presently found that proved it. 

This issue arose in the Kansas-Nebraska bill intro- 
duced on January 4, 1854, by Stephen A. Douglas, who 
after the deaths of Calhoun, Clay, and Webster, stood 
forth as the dominating figure in Congress. This bill, 
in brief, proposed to extend the principle of popular 
sovereignty to the territory of Nebraska and con- 
sequently to repeal the Missouri Compromise. In- 
stantly the North was aflame with anger. Mass 
meetings by the hundred were held; Douglas was 
denounced as a traitor and burned in effigy; the leg- 
islatures of six different states protested to Congress. 
Seward, Sumner, Everett, and Chase attacked the bill 
in the Senate. Despite this, Douglas, through skill, 
oratory, and main force, drove the bill through and it 
was signed by Pierce, urged on by Jefferson Davis, his 
Secretary of State. 


Introduction XX1 


It was clear now that no compromise would ever hold 
the Southern slave owners in leash; the line of 36° 30’, 
which had been the bulwark of the anti-slavery forces 
was broken through. But afew months and the fertile 
prairies of the Louisiana Purchase would be swarming 
with rich planters and negro slaves. The North was 
aroused and alarmed. In Boston, where some twenty 
years before, a mob had put a rope around the neck of 
Garrison, the abolitionist, another mob led by some of 
the foremost citizens, now attempted to rescue a fugitive 
negro from jail by battering down the doors. It took 
artillery and cavalry to get the wretch through the mob 
to the wharf where he was to be sent back to Virginia. 

The demand for a political weapon to smash slavery 
now obliterated party lines. The Whig principles of 
high tariff, internal improvement, and national bank, 
faded before the huge question of a slave or a free 
nation. ‘Two months after the Kansas-Nebraska Bill 
passed, a new party, adopting the name ‘‘ Republican,”’ 
“postponing all differences with regard to political - 
economy ” and demanding the repeal not only of the 
Kansas-Nebraska Bill, but of the Fugitive Slave Law, 
was formed in Michigan. Several other state con- 
ventions followed, and a national convention was called 
for on Washington’s Birthday, 1856. 


Lincoln the Politician-lawyer 


During all these years what had become of Abraham 
Lincoln? His term in the legislature of Illinois had 
ended in 1842, twelve years back. In the meantime 
we hear of new names like Douglas, bearing the brunt 
of the slavery advance; and others in the anti-slavery 


XXll Introduction 


defense, like Seward, Chase, Sumner, and Everett; but 
no Lincoln. It is a strange situation, that the man 
who was to do most for the cause of freedom at last, was, 
in much of this period in virtual retirement. He had 
been admitted to the bar in 1837, and formed a law 
partnership in Springfield. Toward the close of his 
term in the Illinois legislature he married Mary Todd, 
a woman who, though she did not always condone his 
easy good nature, at least understood him and was 
ambitious for him. But, for the next four years, party 
management in Illinois demanded that he step aside to 
allow others to be sent to Congress; then he served a 
two-year term, voted, as he said, at least forty times for 
the Wilmot Proviso, introduced a bill to forbid slavery 
in the District of Columbia, and went back to Spring- 
field without getting a renomination. 

The uncertainty of this political reward was scant 
nourishment for a poor lawyer whose family was grow- 
ing. His son, Robert Todd, was born in 18438; a 
second son in 1846. Abandoning politics, he devoted 
his time to law practice. It is at this period that we 
get the familiar portrait of Lincoln as given by his 
partner. We see the sprawling figure in the untidy 
office, with feet on the desk. We picture the gaunt, 
kindly advocate with the battered tall hat in which he 
kept his documents. We hear of his downright refusal 
to defend a tainted case, and we feel the growing con- 
fidence this strange man inspired in his neighbors. 


Lincoln Aroused. Peoria Speech, October, 1854 


It was the repeal of the principle of the Missouri 
Compromise through the passage of the Kansas- 


Introduction XXlil 


Nebraska Bill that awoke Lincoln. ‘I was losing 
interest in politics when the repeal of the Missouri 
Compromise aroused me again,” he wrote later. He 
had of course always disapproved of slavery and 
opposed the extension of it. The sight of “ slaves 
shackled together with irons,” he said in a letter to a 
friend, ‘‘ is a continual torment to me, and I see some- 
thing like it every time I touch the Ohio or any other 
slave border.’’ He had voted for the Wilmot Proviso. 
But in the main, as he said himself, he bit his lips and 
kept quiet. 

Almost immediately after the repeal, however, drawn 
again into the thick of the fight, he made his great Peoria 
speech. In the same year, 1854, a Senator was to be 
elected by the legislature of Illinois, and there was an 
opportunity to send someone hostile to Douglas. The 
opponents of the Douglas faction included Whigs 
and Democrats and were not a thoroughly welded 
group. Lincoln, though he led in the early voting of 
the legislature, discerning that the new alignment 
against Douglas was not holding together and that a 
candidate favorable to slavery would be elected, 
withdrew and threw his strength to an anti-slavery 
candidate.1 : 


Lincoln-Douglas Debates, 1858 


In this way he temporarily sacrificed his own am- 
bitions for the sake of the cause. His chance came four 
years later (1858) when the term of Douglas himself 
expired and the Republican State Convention selected 
Lincoln as their “ first and only choice ”’ for the United 


1 Lincoln held out until the tenth ballot. 


XX1V Introduction 


States Senate. Meantime, a stupendous decision was 
handed down by the Supreme Court in the famous Dred 
Scott case (1857). Dred Scott, a slave, had been taken 
by his master into free territory and then carried back 
into the slave state of Missouri. He brought suit on 
the ground that his residence in free territory had made 
him a freeman. ‘The opinion of the Court was sweep- 
ing. It declared not only that Dred Scott was not 
free, but that the Missouri Compromise excluding 
slavery in the Louisiana Purchase north of 36° 30’, was 
in violation of the Constitution. The following year 
Lincoln faced Douglas in seven debates in Illinois, 
and the country looked on eagerly and excitedly. 
Never had such crowds gathered to hear a political 
discussion. 

The rivalry between these two men is one of the most 
dramatic of our history. They were in the Illinois 
legislature at the same time — Lincoln the leader of the 
minority, Douglas of the majority. They were suitors 
for the hand of the same young woman — here Lincoln 
was the victor. Physically, Lincoln was older, exceed- 
ingly tall, awkward, and retiring; Douglas was short, 
supple, aggressive. In speech Douglas was adroit and 
flexible, while Lincoln was blunt and dogged. Douglas 
rose rapidly to a judgeship, and the United States 
Senate. Lincoln, except for his one term in Congress, 
stayed in Illinois. When Douglas was fencing with 
Sumner, Chase, Seward, and Everett, Lincoln was 
driving homely argument into the heads of frontier 
jurymen. When the name of Douglas was on the lips 
of most people, North and South, Lincoln’s reputation 
had not reached to the borders of his own state. Par- 


Introduction XXV 


tisans of the slaveholders, growing more and more 
imperious with the decision just given in their favor, 
now looked to the “ Little Giant ’’ Douglas to stand 
forth as their leader and sustain the view that Congress 
could not interfere with slavery. Anxious friends of 
freedom looked at the gaunt figure of the Springfield 
lawyer and hoped that he would prove a worthy cham- 
pion for them. The outcome, though it resulted in 
the. election of Douglas, defined clearly Lincoln’s 
position and drove Douglas into a dilemma that cost 
him the presidency two years later. 


Lincoln’s Position 


Lincoln’s position was just this: he hated slavery as 
a great wrong, but he believed in the rights of the slave- 
holders under the Constitution; he held to the Mis- 
sour! Compromise principle of keeping slavery within 
a boundary ; he hoped and believed in the final extinc- 
tion of slavery in time; but most firmly he believed 
in preserving the Union as the greatest hope of all. 
On the other hand, Douglas had been put into a difficult 
place by the Dred Scott decision. He held, as we have 
already seen, that the people of a new state could decide 
whether slavery should be forbidden or not; but the 
Dred Scott decision declared that slavery could not be 
forbidden. Douglas’s talk of fitting in the Supreme 
Court decision and the popular sovereignty plan was 
like affirming, as Lincoln pointed out, that a thing could 
be legally driven away from a place where it had a legal 
right to be. Lincoln, on the contrary, held that the 
nation had to be all slave or all free. The question was 
which? 


XXV1 Introduction 


““A House Divided ”’ 


This famous declaration of the house divided against 
itself, Lincoln made at the Republican Convention at 
Springfield in 1858 in a carefully prepared speech. 
Douglas answered in Chicago with the claim that 
‘“‘ variety in all our local and domestic institutions is 
the great safeguard of our liberties.”” Then followed 
the joint debates in every Congressional district, except 
Springfield and Chicago. The climax came at Freeport 
when the candidates answered each other’s ques- 
tions. Lincoln again came out squarely for the right 
of Congress to prohibit slavery in the territories, and 
Douglas for the popular sovereignty idea and the 
Dred Scott decision. 

The debates did more than define the positions of the 
two men. Lincoln could no longer say “ scarcely 
anybody outside of Illinois knows me,” and his pre- 
diction that he would sink out of view and be forgotten, 
was wide of the mark. The immense crowds of men 
and women who flocked to hear the debates were only 
a small fraction of the masses who, day by day, read 
every word of the speeches. And while the superior 
grace and agility of Douglas were evident to the au- 
diences, the heat of a moral earnestness raised Lin- 
coln’s utterances to a new high plane. 


Douglas’s Position, the ‘‘ Freeport Doctrine ”’ 


Douglas soon found that his expedient of popular 
sovereignty mixed with the Dred Scott decision (the 
‘‘ Freeport doctrine ’’) was unpalatable to the South. 
The Southerners had looked to him for something more 


Introduction XXV1l 


uncompromising. In a debate in the Senate Jefferson 
Davis made it quite clear to Douglas that what the 
South wanted was not non-intervention by Congress 
but protection from Congress. The South wanted more 
even than the Dred Scott decision ; it demanded not 
only that property in slaves be recognized like other 
property, but that slavery itself be accepted by the 
nation as right. Moreover, this Southern feeling was 
inflamed by John Brown’s raid in Virginia, which was 
regarded by many as the logical outcome of Lincoln’s 
idea of a ‘‘ house divided ” and Seward’s doctrine of 
‘‘ an irrepressible conflict.”” The following Democratic 
Convention at Charleston split on this issue and scorn- 
fully rejected Douglas as a candidate. 


Lincoln at Cooper Union, February, 1860 .- 


Many prominent anti-slavery leaders in the North, 
on the contrary, found Lincoln’s idea of a ‘“ house 
divided ”’ and Seward’s idea of ‘‘an irrepressible conflict”’ 
(which, coming from a Senator, attracted far more 
attention than Lincoln’s) too radical. Influential 
newspapers like the New York Times, New York 
Tribune, and the Springfield Republican for instance, 
favored the Douglas idea. Nevertheless, Lincoln was 
invited to speak in Cooper Union in New York and there, 
on February 27, 1860, delivered one of his greatest 
addresses. 


Nominated for the Presidency, May, 1860 


When the Republican Convention met at Chicago 
three months later, Seward was generally conceded to 
be the logical candidate. He had been Governor of 


—XXviii Introduction 


New York, and United States Senator. He had several 
times been the spokesman for the Whigs and Repub- 
licans, and his speeches were read by both North and 
South as the utterance of the foremost opponent of the 
slave power. He was backed by a powerful organ- 
ization under control of Thurlow Weed, and by great 
newspapers. Then there was Chase, also much better 
known than Lincoln. By one of those freaks of con- 
vention psychology, however, the tide for ‘“‘ the rail- 
splitter,’ began after the first ballot had showed that 
Seward’s strength had been overestimated. 

Amid a bedlam of delegates ‘‘ Honest Abe” was 
nominated to the bitter disappointment of Seward’s 
followers. ‘‘ Hundreds of men,” says an eye-witness, 
‘‘ were so prostrated by the excitement they had en- 
dured, and their exertions in shrieking for Seward or 
Lincoln, that they were hardly able to walk to their 
hotels.” Much of the credit for the nomination is 
generally given to Horace Greeley, editor of the New 
York Tribune, who, bitterly hostile to Seward, and 
left out of the New York delegation by the Seward 
party, secured a proxy from Oregon. ‘The nomination 
was a surprise and disappointment to most of the promi- 
nent anti-slavery people of the North. The opinion 
prevailed that an “ available’’ candidate had been 
thrust ahead of a man of unquestioned ability and dis- 
tinction. ‘‘ At this critical moment,” says Charnwood, 
“the fit man was chosen on the very ground of his 
unfitness.” Lincoln had still to reveal his simple 
greatness to the country; very few observers were 
keen enough to discern it at this time. 


Introduction XX1X 


Elected a Minority President, November, 1860 


The Republican organization stood firmly behind 
their candidate in the ensuing election and Seward 
rendered noble service to his rival. Lincoln carried 
every free state except New Jersey and got 180 electoral 
votes to 12 for Douglas, and 72 for Breckinridge, who 
had been nominated by the Southern wing of the 
Democrats. The popular vote, however, showed 
Douglas very strong with 1,291,000 to Lincoln’s 1,857,- 
000; and the combined vote of the two wings of the 
Democrats was almost 300,000 greater than Lincoln’s 
vote. Nevertheless, the North had come out squarely 
against the extension of slavery. The next President 
was the man who had declared that the nation must 
be all slave or all free; that ‘‘ a house divided against 
itself cannot stand.” It was a ringing challenge to the 


South. 
Secession 


The answer of the South came without hesitation. 
The legislature of South Carolina, in session when the 
election of Lincoln was announced, at once issued a 
call for a convention to consider secession. On De- 
cember 20 an ordinance “‘ to dissolve the Union between 
the State of South Carolina and other states united with 
her under the compact entitled ‘The Constitution of 
the United States’ ”’ was unanimously passed by this 
body. The states of Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, 
Louisiana, Georgia, and Texas followed in December 
and January; and on February 4, delegates met in 
Montgomery, Alabama, and formed the Confederate 
States of America. 


XXX Introduction 


Matters were made more serious by the fact that 
in the interim of four months between his election and 
inauguration, the situation was in the hands of Presi- 
dent Buchanan, an old man, who was afraid to act 
with firmness lest he should have a war on his hands, 
and a Cabinet that contained several Southern sym- 
pathizers. A Congressional committee appointed to 
assuage the South failed to agree on a compromise. 
South Carolina made advances to take over government 
property including forts and customs houses. Mayor 
Anderson, in charge of the forts in Charleston harbor, 
concentrated his force in Fort Sumter on one of the 
islands to be in the best position for defense. Dix, 
Secretary of the Treasury, telegraphed to New Orleans, 
“Tf any man attempts to haul down the American 
flag, shoot him on the spot.’’ 

Almost anything might have happened between 
November, 1860, and March, 1861. The South was 
sobered by the prospect of secession, but inflamed by 
the idea of being forced to stay in the Union. Some 
of the slave states, including Virginia, had not yet 
followed the secessionists. Indeed, Lincoln hoped 
that Robert E. Lee would command the Federal forces 
in case of war and offered him the position. Neither 
was the North united. Horace Greeley, for example, 
was one of those who wanted to let the seceding states 
go their way in peace rather than have the Union 
‘pinned together with bayonets.’”’ The utterances 
of Lincoln at this time reveal how solemnly he regarded 
the condition of the Union. ‘I turn, then,” he said, 
“to the American people and to that God who has 
never forsaken them.’ He hoped fervently that 


Introduction XXX] 


the armed struggle which seemed to some observers 
inevitable, could be averted. ‘‘ And I may say ‘in 
advance,” he declared, ‘‘ that there will be no blood- 
shed unless it be forced upon the government. The 
government will not use force unless force is used 
against it.” 


The Inaugural 


It was with the deepest feeling of the seriousness of 
the occasion, and an anxiety to allay the feverishness 
of the country that Lincoln delivered his inaugural 
address on March 4, 1861. The event was made dra- 
matic by the presence of his old Illinois rival, Douglas, 
_ who sat beside him, and his Republican rival, Seward. 
Chief Justice Roger Taney, who had handed down the 
Dred Scott decision, swore him in. 

For the most part the speech is a reiteration of what 
he had said again and again in various parts of the 
country. He was repeating it for the benefit of the 
South. He reminded his audience (and he was really 
speaking to the entire country) that he had been sworn 
to support the Constitution; that the laws, even the 
fugitive slave law, were to be carried out; that he saw 
no reason for, and hoped that there would be no use 
of, force. He closed with a paragraph of great beauty 
and dignity. 

When he took office Lincoln faced extraordinary 
difficulties — greater than any president before or 
since. ‘To begin with, the conflagration of civil war was 
ready for the striking of a match. Any rash move 
would supply the necessary spark. It was a time when 
great skill was needed in handling the nation’s affairs. 


XXX11 Introduction 


Lincoln had been lifted to the Presidency without train- 
ing in executive office. Seward had had such a training 
as Governor of New York; Chase, Secretary of the 
Treasury, had been Governor of Ohio. The Cabinet 
held some very able, but also some very incompetent, 
men; the President was inexperienced and as yet 
undiscovered. Further, the South had in Jefferson 
Davis a man of long public experience and extraordinary 
ability. 

Seward at this point, chafing at a policy of delay, and 
eager, no doubt, to secure ascendency, submitted less 
than a month after the inauguration a paper entitled 
Some Thoughts for the President’s Consideration. The 
paper outlined a complete domestic and foreign policy 
for the administration and suggested that ‘“ the Presi- 
dent must do it himself or devolve it upon some 
member of the Cabinet.’”’ Lincoln’s answer was pa- 
tient, without bitterness, and final. There was no 
further doubt in Seward’s mind as to who was Presi- 
dent; and from that time he gave ungrudgingly of his 
best effort to the head of the administration. 


Fort Sumter Fired Upon 


The next test of the new executive came speedily. 
On the very day of his inauguration, the Confederate 
flag was hoisted in Montgomery; and the aggression 
of South Carolina, begun in Buchanan’s term, had 
continued. Major Anderson was shut up in Fort 
Sumter without provisions. Lincoln, overruling the 
advice of Seward, decided to send supplies. He notified 
the Governor of the state that no men or ammunition 
would be sent unless resistance were offered. Hearing 


Introduction XXXIll 


this, the Confederate government ordered General 
Beauregard to demand the surrender of the Fort. 
Major Anderson refused, and the first shot of the war 
was fired. Lincoln answered the next day with a 
eall for 75,000 troops to suppress the rebellion. 

From one point of view, the four years that followed 
from the time the Northern troops were mobbed passing 
through Baltimore to the meeting of General Grant 
and General Lee at Appomattox, may be considered 
a military campaign. From this standpoint we see 
the ebb and flow of armies urged forward by the cry 
of “‘On to Richmond!” or ‘On to Washington!”? We 
see the high tide of the Confederate cause in Pickett’s 
charge at Gettysburg, and then the slow recession until 
the end. But from another point of view, the struggle 
is a great drama, and the protagonist is Abraham 
Lincoln. 

Difficulties That Lincoln Faced 


We have said that when Lincoln took office he was an 
untried and unknown force. Serious doubts about his 
measuring up to his task were felt and widely expressed 
by many prominent people. Little by little, however, 
mostly in unobtrusive ways, there emerged from the 
tumult a really great character. We see him even more 
clearly now revealed in the light of many careful studies 
of his work. 

The Cabinet 


But how can we measure his greatness? One way is 
to consider the labors and obstacles that confronted him. 
We have mentioned his Cabinet. Even in times of 
peace a President must have a Cabinet that will pull 


XXXIV Introduction 


together. But here was a war, tearing the very nation 
to shreds, and the President’s advisers were scattered 
in their opinions. Seward was ambitious, and often 
tactless. At a time when the utmost delicacy was 
needed to prevent England from recognizing the South, 
he wrote a letter that would have drawn her in against 
us. Lincoln changed the whole tone of the letter 
before it was sent. Chase, Secretary of the Treasury, 
never recovered from his disappointment at seeing 
Lincoln get the nomination in 1860. He began to 
angle for the nomination in 1864, and continued until 
he saw that the delegates from his own state would 
not support him. In spite of this, Lincoln kept him 
in the Cabinet because he felt that was the best way to 
serve the country. Chase and Seward were hostile to 
each other and at one time sent in their resignations 
together. Lincoln refused to let either go. There 
were other disappointments in the Cabinet, too. Lin- 
coln endured Cameron, his first Secretary of War, as 
long as he could; and then he appointed Stanton, who 
had made no secret of his contempt for the new Presi- 
dent, but who, Lincoln felt, had the ability needed to 
drive the department. The President endured the 
vanities of these men just as long as he felt they served 
the country. For himself, he never showed an exag- 
gerated sense of dignity; he thought only of the work 
he had sworn to do. 


The Generals 
And then there were the generals. Everybody 


wanted to be an officer ; most men wanted to be major- 
generals. Powerful friends of officers bombarded the 


Introduction XXXV 


President with demands for promotion until he re- 
minded one that generals’ commissions were “ not as 
plentiful as blackberries.’”’ Then again, several of the 
generals schemed for gigantic expeditions by which 
they would crush the rebellion ‘‘in a single blow ”’; 
but they used up so much energy in preparing and talk- 
ing about what they were going to do that they were a 
severe trial. 

Further, there was jealousy of the bitterest kind 
between commanders who should have had an eye upon 
only one thing — the destruction of Southern armies. 
Hooker did not codperate with McClellan; McClellan 
did not help Pope as much as he should have; Rose- 
crans and Halleck withheld opportunities from Grant. 
This feeling spread to the men, so that the appointment 
of a particular general often was the signal for wholesale 
desertions. Talk of a dictatorship unbalanced several 
of the officers, and they were led to issue proclamations 
of one kind or another in the districts they served, until 
Lincoln’s prompt revocation taught them to keep their 
balance. 


McClellan 


And finally, there was McClellan, the greatest trial 
of all the men in command. After the disaster of the 
first battle of Bull Run, Lincoln summoned McClellan 
from the West, where he had had much success, to 
reorganize and drill the army. No general in the 
Northern army was a greater genius at this than McClel- 
lan. He took the demoralized army that went to pieces 
at Bull Run and added to it the raw troops that kept 
pouring in as volunteers were called for. He marched 


XXXV1 Introduction 


them, drilled them, and equipped them. But he would 
not advance with them. He overestimated the enemy’s 
force, magnifying it to three times its actual size; he 
suspected people at Washington of trying to hamper 
him; he dreamed and wrote of ‘‘ saving the nation,” 
of a dictatorship; and he was unpardonably haughty 
to Lincoln. The latter, nevertheless, overlooked all 
of this; once, when McClellan snubbed him he re- 
marked, ‘‘ I should gladly hold his horse if only he will 
give us a victory.”? He suggested plans, he urged, he 
implored McClellan to advance. Not once, but 
several times, to everyone except the general, the 
Southern army seemed within easy grasp. But Mc- 
Clellan let it get away. He let Johnston evacuate 
Manassas; he let Lee escape across the Potomac after 
Antietam. The patience of Lincoln with him is one 
of the great chapters in American history. When 
McClellan refused to move, Lincoln remarked that he 
would “ borrow” the army from him; and finally, 
after the awful failure to seize his opportunity to destroy 
Lee at Antietam, Lincoln removed him. It was gen- 
erally known, too, that McClellan was courting the 
Democratic nomination for the Presidency, and it was 
as generally believed that he fought in a fashion to gain 
support of those who wished to let the South go its way. 
In spite of everything, however, Lincoln gave him the 
fullest measure of loyal codperation. 


Grant 


Among his generals, Lincoln supported everyone to 
the limit of his ability. However, he hailed the men 
who could not only plan a battle but fight the battle. 


Introduction | XXXV11 


Not until General Grant showed these two qualities did 
Lincoln have any relief from the necessity of being 
Commander-in-Chief of the Army, as well as President. 
To Grant, he willingly gave a free hand. And when 
someone suggested that this General was ambitious for 
the Presidency, Lincoln’s remark was, “ If he takes Rich- 
mond, let him have the Presidency.” This largeness of 
vision is true of all we know about his dealing with his 
generals. It is an unmistakable evidence of greatness. 


Greeley and Congress 


Next among the problems, came the public men who 
knew just how Lincoln ought to do things, and said so. 
Horace Greeley, the editor of the New York Tribune, 
aman with a large following in the East, began almost 
at the start of Lincoln’s term to grumble, to criticize, 
to take a superior tone. Lincoln kept reading the 
Tribune to keep posted on Greeley’s latest dissatis- 
faction. His letter in answer to Greeley’s ‘‘ prayer of 
the twenty million ’”’ is an indication of his attitude 
toward such critics. Governors of states, like Gov- 
ernor Seymour of New York, had to be appeased. 
Even local politicians had to be soothed so that they 
would help send the quota of their state to the army. 
Congress, most of the time, kept up a constant carping 
at Lincoln, which he bore with infinite patience. As 
a grim joke upon one of the Congressmen, who exceeded 
his privilege of criticizing to the point where his words 
bordered on treason, Lincoln sent him to the Southern 
army. Elections in the state had to be watched, too, 
for every election that went against the administration 
made recruiting more difficult, 


XXXVI11 Introduction 


A Divided North 


Then the war was not as simple as a war against 
a foreign country. When it is a question of fighting 
against another nation, the President can count upon 
the ungrudging support of a united people. But the 
Civil War was different in many respects. There were, 
for example, some people who would fight for the 
Union but not for the negroes. General Rosecrans 
expressed this idea. There were others who objected 
to the use of force to preserve the Union. Greeley was 
one of these. There were others who objected to 
fighting unless the slaves were freed first. Then there 
was the question of how to treat states hke Kentucky — 
slave states that had not joined the Confederacy. 
They might turn against the Union at any time and 
thus change the front of war. Furthermore, there 
was the grave question of England’s attitude. The 
blockade of the Southern ports cut off the supply of raw 
cotton that had fed the mills of the big English manu- 
facturing towns. English workmen were thrown out of 
work and began to suffer want. Naturally English 
people began to think that the way out of their trouble 
was to help the South set up its own government. 
This sympathy for the Confederacy was greatly aug- 
mented when the Union officers seized Southern agents 
sailing on an English vessel. 

These were not by any means all of the burdens that 
the President had during the war. In 1862, when 
the Union cause seemed almost hopeless, another 
anxiety and sorrow came to Lincoln in the illness and 
death of his twelve year old son. Perhaps the duty 


Introduction XXX1X 


that weighed most upon him was that of reviewing 
cases of soldiers — mostly boys — who had been con- 
demned to death for desertion from the army. Scores 
of telegrams are on record to show with what limitless 
patience and tenderness he handled their cases. 

No one can look back upon the problems, the awful 
responsibilities of those four years without feeling 
impressed by the man who stood his ground and faced 
them. With forgetfulness of himself, without hatred, 
without vanity, but with a singleness and simplicity 
of purpose, he struggled forward to save the Union. 


Second Inaugural 


By the time his first term was drawing to a close, he 
felt so depressed that he frequently predicted that he 
would not be reélected. It was a great encouragement 
to him therefore to find that, despite even such signs 
as the draft riots, the North overwhelmingly desired 
him to remain the Chief. The words of his address at 
his second inaugural reach a plane rarely touched in 
state papers, seldom attained indeed, in literature. The 
dignity and strength of his, ‘‘ With malice toward none, 
with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God 
gives us to see the right’’ make this the supreme 
utterance of his life. 

Death 

The end we all know: how he was sitting in a box 
with Mrs. Lincoln in Ford’s Theatre in Washington 
on the night of April 14, 1865; how the crazed assassin 
entered, shot him in the back of the head and jumped 
to the stage; how the President was removed to a 
house across the street where he died in a few hours. 


xl 


Introduction 


He built the rail-pile as he built the State, 
Pouring his splendid strength through every blow; 
The grip that swung the ax in Illinois 

Was on the pen that set a people free. 


And when he fell in whirlwind, he went down 
As when a lordly cedar, green with boughs, 
Goes down with a great shout upon the hills 
And leaves a lonesome place against the sky.' 


1 From Edwin Markham’s Lincoln, the Man of the People. 


LINCOLN 
ANDUD Ro Siebs\ HAUNT DE) BM PT None 


Announcement of Lincoln’s Candidacy for the 
Legislature 


The announcement which follows is of interest because it is 
the earliest political paper of Lincoln’s that we have. When 
he wrote it he was twenty-three years old. The principles he 
declares were those of the Whigs of his time. He was neither 
more nor less wise than the others in his ardent support of in- 
ternal improvement, — canals, particularly. The last sen- 
tence has the flavor of resignation that we find frequently in 
his later writings. See, for example, his letter to H. D. Sharpe, 
after his defeat by Douglas, December 8, 1858. 


[Written about March 1, 1832] 


FELLOW-CITIZENS: I presume you all know who I 
am. Iam humble Abraham Lincoln. I have been so- 
licited by many friends to become a candidate for the 
Legislature. My politics are short and sweet, like the 
old woman’s dance. I am in favor of a national bank. 
I am in favor of the internal improvement system, and 
a high protective tariff. These are my sentiments and 
political principles. If elected, I shall be thankful; if 


not, it will be all the same. 
A. LINCOLN 


2 Abraham Lincoln 


From the Address to the People of Sangamon County 


This is from a more extended announcement during the 
same election. It is notable because of the statement ‘‘so 
soon as I discover my opinions to be erroneous I shall be ready 
to renounce them.’’ This principle was a corner stone of 
Lincoln’s growth. See his letter to Horace Greeley, August 
22, 1862; his letter to McClellan, February 3, 1862; and that 
to Grant, July 13, 1863. 


[March 9, 1832] 


But, fellow citizens, I shall conclude. Considering 
the great degree of modesty which should always attend 
youth, it is probable I have already been more pre- 
suming than becomes me. However, upon the subjects 
of which I have treated, I have spoken as I have 
thought. I may be wrong in regard to any or all of 
them; but, holding it a sound maxim that it is better 
only sometimes to be right than at all times to be wrong, 
so soon as I discover my opinions to be erroneous I 
shall be ready to renounce them. 

Every man is said to have his peculiar ambition. 
Whether it be true or not, I can say, for one, that I have 
no other so great as that of being truly esteemed of my 
fellow men by rendering myself worthy of their esteem. 
How far I shall succeed in gratifying this ambition is 
yet to be developed. I am young and unknown to 
many of you. I was born and have ever remained in 
the most humble walks of life. I have no wealthy or 
popular relations or friends to recommend me. My 
case is thrown exclusively upon the independent voters 
of the county, and if elected, they will have conferred 
a favor upon me for which I shall be unremitting in 


Addresses and Letters 3 


my labors to compensate. But if the good people in 
their wisdom shall see fit to keep me in the background, 
I have been too familiar with disappointments to be 
very much chagrined. 


Your friend and fellow-citizen, 
A. LINCOLN 


Political Views in 1836 


Lincoln was defeated for the legislature in 1832, but elected 
in 1834. He had already served a two year term therefore, 
and was a candidate to succeed himself when he wrote this. 
The letter is worth remembering for his willingness to ‘“‘show 
his hand,”’ a willingness that Lincoln very consistently had 
throughout his life. The second paragraph is one of the 
earliest indications of the woman suffrage movement in 
America. Horace Greeley, who later became one of Lincoln’s 
most powerful friends and still later one of his severest critics, 
was one of the first prominent men to advocate the cause. 
Note that Lincoln’s belief in internal improvements persists. 
He had visions of being the De Witt Clinton of Illinois. 


New Salem, June 13, 1836 

To THE EpitTor oF THE Journal: In your paper of 
last Saturday I see a communication, over the signature 
of “Many Voters,” in which the candidates who are an- 
nounced in the Journal are called upon to ‘‘show their 
hands.” Agreed. Here’s mine. 

I go for all sharing the privileges of the government 
who assist in bearing its burdens. Consequently, I 
go for admitting all whites to the right of suffrage 
who pay taxes or bear arms (by no means excluding 
females). 


4 | Abraham Lincoln 


If elected, I shall consider the whole people of Sanga- 
mon my constituents, as well those that oppose as 
those that support me. 

While acting as their representative, I shall be gov- 
erned by their will on all subjects upon which I have 
the means of knowing what their will is; and upon all 
others I shall do what my own judgment teaches me 
will best advance their interests. Whether elected or 
not, I go for distributing the proceeds of the sales of 
the public lands to the several states, ! to enable our 
state, in common with others, to dig canals and con- 
struct railroads without borrowing money and paying 
the interest on it. 

If alive on the first Monday in November, I shall 
vote for Hugh L. White for President.? 

Very respectfully 
A. LINCOLN 


Protest against Slavery 


This was called forth by the passage of a number of reso- 
lutions in the Illinois legislature, designed to allay the grow- 
ing fear of slave holders and to put a curb upon the activities 
of the Abolitionists. Other northern states were attempting 
in similar ways to hush the protests against slavery. This 
is Lineoln’s rebellion against the ‘‘gag’’ policy. A few 
months later Elijah Lovejoy was shot in Alton, about fifty 
miles from Springfield, for publishing an Abolitionist paper. 
It is worth noting as an indication of the feeling of the time 
that only one other member of the legislature signed Lin- 
coln’s protest. 


1 These amounted to twenty-four million dollars in 1836. 
2 White carried only two states. 


Addresses and Letters 5 


[March 3, 1837] 


The following protest was presented to the House 
March 8, 1837, which was read and ordered to be spread 
on the journals, to wit: 


Resolutions upon the subject of domestic slavery hav- 
ing passed both branches of the General Assembly at 
its present session, the undersigned hereby protest 
- against the passage of the same. 

They believe that the institution of slavery is founded 
on both injustice and bad policy, but that the promul- 
gation of abolition doctrines tends rather to increase 
than abate its evils. 

They believe that the Congress of the United States 
has no power under the Constitution to interfere with 
the institution of slavery in the different states. 

They believe that the Congress of the United States 
has the power, under the Constitution, to abolish 
slavery in the District of Columbia, but that the power 
ought not to be exercised, unless at the request of the 
people of the District. 

The difference between these opinions and those con- 
tained in the said resolutions is their reason for entering 


this protest. 
Dan STONE, 


A. LINCOLN, 
Representatives from the County of Sangamon. 


Letters to His Law Partner William H. Herndon 
The law firm of Lincoln and Herndon was formed in 1845 


and continued until Lincoln’s death. Herndon, who is the 
chief authority for the details of Lincoln’s early life, was ten 


6 Abraham Lincoln 


years younger than his partner. Lincoln at this time was 
serving his one (and only) term in Congress. He met many 
of the most talked of men of the day, including ‘‘ Mr. Stephens 
of Georgia,’ afterwards vice-president of the Confederacy. 


Washington, February 2, 1848 

Dear WiuiAM: I just take my pen to say that Mr. 

Stephens, of Georgia, a little, slim, pale-faced, con- 

sumptive man, with a voice like Logan’s, has just con- 

cluded the very best speech of an hour’s length I ever 

heard. My old withered dry eyes are full of tears yet. 

If he writes it out anything like he delivered it, our 
people shall see a good many copies of it. 

Yours truly, 
A. LINCOLN 


After Lincoln had become president he had more than one 
occasion to write letters like the following to his generals. 
See the letter to General Hunter, December 31, 1861. 


Washington, July 10, 1848 

Dear WiuutAm: Your letter covering the newspaper 
slips was received last night. The subject of that letter 
is exceedingly painful to me; and I cannot but think 
there is some mistake in your impression of the motives 
of the old men. I suppose I am now one of the old 
men; and I declare, on my veracity, which I think is 
good with you, that nothing could afford me more satis- 
faction than to learn that you and others of my young 
friends at home are doing battle in the contest, and en- 
dearing themselves to the people, and taking a stand 
far above any I have ever been able to reach in their ad- 


Addresses and Letters 7 


miration. I cannot conceive that other old men feel 
differently. Of course I cannot demonstrate what I 
say; but I was young once, and I am sure I was never 
ungenerously thrust back. I hardly know what to say. 
The way for a young man to rise is to improve himself 
every way he can, never suspecting that anybody wishes 
to hinder him. Allow me to assure you that suspicion 
and jealousy never did help any man in any situation. 
There may sometimes be ungenerous attempts to keep 
a young man down; and they will succeed, too, if he 
allows his mind to be diverted from its true channel to 
brood over the attempted injury. Cast about, and see 
if this feeling has not injured every person you have 
ever known to fall into it. 

Now, in what I have said, I am sure you will suspect 
nothing but sincere friendship. I would save you from 
a fatal error. You have been a laborious, studious 
young man. You are far better informed on almost 
all subjects than I have ever been. You cannot fail 
in any laudable object, unless you allow your mind to 
be improperly directed. I have somewhat the advan- 
tage of you in the world’s experience, merely by being 
older; and it is this that induces me to advise. 

Your friend, as ever, 
A. LINCOLN 


Letters to John D. Johnston 


This Johnston was a son of Lincoln’s stepmother, Sarah 
Bush Johnston, by her first marriage. Though Lincoln had 
a real affection for his stepbrother, he had an accurate esti- 
mate of Johnston’s shiftlessness. His attitude toward his 
stepmother in these letters is worth notice. 


8 Abraham Lincoln 


January 2, 1851 

Dear JoHNSTON: Your request for eighty dollars I 
do not think best to comply with now. At the various 
times when I have helped you a little you have said to 
me, ‘‘ We can get along very well now’’; but in a very 
short time I find you in the same difficulty again. Now 
this can only happen by some defect in your conduct. 
What that defect is, I think I know. You are not lazy, 
and still you are an idler. I doubt whether, since I 
saw you, you have done a good whole day’s work in any 
one day. You do not very much dislike to work, and 
still you do not work much, merely because it does not 
seem to you that you could get much for it. This 
habit of uselessly wasting time is the whole difficulty ; 
it is vastly important to you, and still more so to your 
children, that you should break the habit. It is more 
important to them, because they have longer to live, 
and can keep out of an idle habit before they are in it, 
easier than they can get out after they are in. 

You are now in need of some money; and what I 
propose is, that you shall go to work, “tooth and nail,” 
for somebody who will give you money for it. Let 
father and your boys take charge of your things at 
home, prepare for a crop, and make the crop, and you 
go to work for the best money wages, or in discharge of 
any debt you owe, that you can get; and to secure 
you a fair reward for your labor, I now promise you, 
that for every dollar that you will, between this and the 
first of May, get for your own labor, either in money 
or as your own indebtedness, I will then give you one 
other dollar. By this, if you hire yourself at ten dollars 
a month, from me you will get ten more, making twenty 


Addresses and Letters 9 


dollars a month for your work. In this I do not mean 
you shall go off to St. Louis, or the lead mines, or the 
gold mines in California, but I mean for you to go at it 
for the best wages you can get close to home in Coles 
County. Now, if you will do this, you will soon be out 
of debt, and, what is better, you will have a habit that 
will keep you from getting in debt again. But if I 
should now clear you out of debt, next year you would 
be just as deep in as ever. You say you would almost 
give your place in heaven for seventy or eighty dollars. 
Then you value your place in heaven very cheap, for I 
am sure you can, with the offer I make, get the seventy 
or eighty dollars for four or five months’ work. You 
say if I will furnish you the money you will deed me the 
land, and, if you don’t pay the money back, you will 
deliver possession. Nonsense! If you can’t now live 
with the land, how will you then live without it? You 
have always been kind to me, and I do not mean to be 
unkind to you. On the contrary, if you will but follow 
my advice, you will find it worth more than eighty 
times eighty dollars to you. 
Affectionately your brother, 
A. LINCOLN 


Shelbyville, November 4, 1851 

Dear BrotHEerR: When I came into Charleston day 
before yesterday, I learned that you are anxious to sell 
the land where you live and move to Missouri. I have 
been thinking of this ever since, and cannot but think 
such a notion utterly foolish. What can you doin 
Missouri better than here? Is the land any richer? 


IO Abraham Lincoln 


Can you there, any more than here, raise corn and 
wheat and oats without work? Will anybody there, 
any more than here, do your work for you? If you in- 
tend to go to work, there is no better place than right 
where you are; if you do not intend to go to work, you 
cannot get along anywhere. Squirming and crawling 
about from place to place can do no good. You have 
raised no crop this year; and what you really want is to 
sell the land, get the money, and spend it. Part with 
the land you have, and, my life upon it, you will never 
after own a spot big enough to bury youin. Half you 
will get for the land you will spend in moving to Mis- 
sourl, and the other half you will eat, drink, and wear 
out, and no foot of land will be bought. Now, I feel 
it my duty to have no hand in such a piece of foolery. 
I feel that it is so even on your own account, and partic- 
ularly on mother’s account. The eastern forty acres 
I intend to keep for mother while she lives; if you will 
not cultivate it, it will rent for enough to support her 
—at least, it will rent for something. Her dower in 
the other two forties she can let you have, and no thanks 
to me. Now, do not misunderstand this letter; I do 
not write it in any unkindness. I write it in order, if 
possible, to get you to face the truth, which truth is, 
you are destitute because you have idled away all your 
time. Your thousand pretenses for not getting along 
better are all nonsense; they deceive nobody but your- 
self. Go to work is the only cure for your case. 

A word to mother. Chapman tells me he wants you 
to go and live with him.’ If I were you I would try it 
awhile. If you get tired of it (as I think you will not), 
~ you can return to your own home. Chapman feels very 


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Addresses and Letters II 


kindly to you, and I have no doubt he will make your 
situation very pleasant. 
Sincerely your son, 
A. LINCOLN 


Springfield, November 25, 1851 
John D. Johnston. 


Dear Brotuer: Your letter of the 22d is just re- 
ceived. Your proposal about selling the east forty acres 
of land is all that I want or could want for myself; but 
I am not satisfied with it on mother’s account — I want 
her to have her living, and I feel that it is my duty, to 
some extent, to see that she is not wronged. She had a 
right of dower (that is, the use of one-third for life) in 
the other two forties! but, it seems, she has already let 
you take that, hook and line. She now has the use of 
the whole east forty, as long as she lives; and if it be 
sold, of course, she is entitled to the interest on all the 
money it brings, as long as she lives; but you propose 
to sell it for three hundred dollars, take one hundred 
away with you, and leave her two hundred at 8 per cent, 
making her the enormous sum of 16 dollars a year. 
Now, if you are satisfied with treating her in that way, 
Iam not. It is true, that you are to have that forty 
for two hundred dollars, at your mother’s death; but 
you are not to have it before. I am confident that land 
can be made to produce for mother at least $30 a year, 
-andI cannot, to oblige any living person, consent that 
she shall be put on an allowance of sixteen dollars a 


year. 
Yours, etc., 


A. LINCOLN 


12 Abraham Lincoln 


The Peoria Speech 


It was now a little more than four months since the passage 
of the Kansas-Nebraska bill had aroused the nation and 
alarmed the North. Immediately upon his return from 
Washington Douglas pitched into the fight in his own state 
to win back the support he had lost. At the state fair at 
Springfield, October 3, he was featured as the chief speaker. 
When he had finished, the crowd ealled for Lincoln to an- 
swer him, which he did on the following day. Two weeks 
later the men met again on the same platform at Peoria and 
Lincoln delivered this speech. At Douglas’s request the 
joint meetings were then discontinued. They were, in effect, 
rehearsals for the great debates of four years later. Aroused 
by the Kansas-Nebraska bill, Lincoln in 1854 became a ecan- 
didate for the legislature, and as a new United States Senator 
was to be chosen, the fight assumed great importance. The 
election resulted in a defeat for the Douglas party, but his 
opponents were as yet so unorganized (the Whig party was 
breaking up, and the Republican had not been formed) that 
a deadlock resulted in the voting in the legislature. By 
eliminating himself, Lincoln broke the deadlock, and opened 
the way for the election of an anti-Douglas Democrat, Ly- 
man Trumbull. 


[October 16, 1854] 


I do not rise to speak now, if I can stipulate with the 
audience to meet me here at half-past six or at seven 
o’clock. It is now several minutes past five, and Judge 
Douglas has spoken over three hours. If you hear me 
at all, I wish you to hear me through. It will take me 
as long as it has taken him. That will carry us beyond 
eight o’clock at night. Now, everyone of you who can 
remain that long can just as well get his supper, meet 
me at seven, and remain an hour or two later. The 
Judge has already informed you that he is to have an 


Addresses and Letters 13 


hour to reply to me. I doubt not but you have been a 
little surprised to learn that I have consented to give 
one of his high reputation and known ability this ad- 
vantage of me. Indeed, my consenting to it, though 
reluctant, was not wholly unselfish, for I suspected, if 
it were understood that the Judge was entirely done, 
you Democrats would leave and not hear me; but by 
giving him the close I felt confident you would stay for 
the fun of hearing him skin me. 

[The audience signified their assent to the arrange- 
ment, and adjourned to seven o’clock p.m., at which 
time they reassembled, and Mr. Lincoln spoke sub- 
stantially as follows :| 

The repeal of the Missouri Compromise, and the 
propriety of its restoration, constitute the subject of 
what Iam about to say. AsI desire to present my own 
connected view of this subject, my remarks will not be 
specifically an answer to Judge Douglas; yet, as I pro- 
ceed, the main points he has presented will arise, and 
will receive such respectful attention as I may be able 
to give them. I wish further to say that I do not pro- 
pose to question the patriotism or to assail the motives 
of any man or class of men, but rather to confine my- 
self strictly to the naked merits of the question. I also 
wish to be no less than national in all the positions I 
may take, and whenever I take ground which others 
have thought, or may think, narrow, sectional, and 
dangerous to the union, I hope to give a reason which 
will appear sufficient, at least to some, why I think dif- 
ferently. | 

And as this subject is no other than part and parcel 
of the larger general question of domestic slavery, I wish 


14 Abraham Lincoln 


to make and keep the distinction between the existing 
institution and the extension of it, so broad and so clear 
that no honest man can misunderstand me, and no dis- 
honest one successfully misrepresent me. 

Before proceeding let me say that I think I have no 
prejudice against the Southern people.! They are just 
what we would be in their situation. If slavery did not 
now exist among them, they would not introduce it. If 
it did now exist among us, we should not instantly give 
it up. This I believe of the masses North and South. 
Doubtless there are individuals on both sides who would 
not hold slaves under any circumstances, and others 
who would gladly introduce slavery anew if it were out 
of existence. We know that some Southern men do 
free their slaves, go North and become tiptop abolition- 
ists, while some Northern ones go South and become 
most cruel slave masters. - 

When Southern people tell us they are no more re- 
sponsible for the origin of slavery than we are, I ac- 
knowledge the fact. When it is said that the institu- 
tion exists, and that it is very difficult to get rid of it in 
any satisfactory way, I can understand and appreciate 
the saying. I surely will not blame them for not doing 
what I should not know how to do myself. If all 
earthly power were given me, I should not know what to 
do as to the existing institution. My first impulse 
would be to free all the slaves, and send them to Liberia, 
to their own native land. But a moment’s reflection 
would convince me that whatever of high hope (as I 
think there is) there may be in this in the long run, its 


1 Read the First Inaugural (p. 142). 


Addresses and Letters is 


sudden execution is impossible. If they were all landed 
there in a day, they would all perish in the next ten 
days; and there are not surplus shipping and surplus 
money enough to carry them there in many times ten 
days. What then? Free them all, and keep them 
among us as underlings?. Is it quite certain that this 
betters their condition? I think I would not hold one 
in slavery at any rate, yet the point is not clear enough 
for me to denounce people upon. What next? Free 
them, and make them politically and socially our equals? 
My own feelings will not admit of this, and if mine 
would, we well know that those of the great mass of 
whites will not. Whether this feeling accords with 
justice and sound judgment is not the sole question, if 
indeed it is any part of it. A universal feeling, whether 
well or ill founded, cannot be safely disregarded. We 
cannot then make them equals. It does seem to me 
that systems of gradual emancipation might be adopted, 
but for their tardiness in this I will not undertake to 
judge our brethren of the South. 

When they remind us of their constitutional rights, I 
acknowledge them — not grudgingly, but fully and 
fairly; and I would give them any legislation for the 
reclaiming of their fugitives which should not in its 
stringency be more likely to carry a free man into 
slavery than our ordinary criminal laws are to hang an 
innocent one. 

But one great argument in support of the repeal of 
the Missouri Compromise is still to come. That argu- 
ment is “the sacred right of self-government.” It 
seems our distinguished senator has found great diffi- 
culty in getting his antagonists, even in the Senate, to 


16 Abraham Lincoln 


meet him fairly on this argument. Some poet has 
said — 
“Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.” 


At a hazard of being thought one of the fools of this 
quotation, I meet that argument — I rush in — I take 
that bull by the horns. I trust I understand and truly 
estimate the right of self-government. My faith in the 
proposition that each man should do precisely as he » 
pleases with all which is exclusively his own lies at the 
foundation of the sense of justice there isin me. I ex- 
tend the principle to communities of men as well as to 
individuals. Iso extend it because it is politically wise, 
as well as naturally just: politically wise in saving us 
from broils about matters which do not concern us. 
Here, or at Washington, I would not trouble myself with 
the oyster laws of Virginia, or the cranberry laws of 
Indiana. The doctrine of self-government is right — 
absolutely and eternally right — but it has no just ap- 
plication as here attempted. Or perhaps I should 
rather say that whether it has such application depends 
upon whether a negro is not or is a man. If he is not 
a man, in that case he who is a man may as a matter of 
self-government do just what he pleases with him.! 
But if the negro is a man, is it not to that extent a total 
destruction of self-government to say that he too shall 
not govern himself? When the white man governs 
himself, that is self-government; but when he governs 
himself and also governs another man, that is more than 
self-government — that is despotism. If the negro is a 


1 Chief Justice Taney, in his Dred Scott decision (March 6, 1857), 
held substantially this view. 


Addresses and Letters 17 


man, why thenmy ancient faith teaches me that ‘‘all 
men are created equal,” and that there can be no moral 
right in connection with one man’s making a slave of 
another. 

Judge Douglas frequently, with bitter irony and sar- 
casm, paraphrases our argument by saying: “The 
white people of Nebraska are good enough to govern 
themselves, but they are not good enough to govern a 
few miserable negroes !’’ 

Well! I doubt not that the people of Nebraska are 
and will continue to be as good as the average of people 
elsewhere. I do not say the contrary. What I do say 
is that no man is good enough to govern another man 
without that other’s consent. I say this is the leading 
principle, the sheet anchor of American republicanism. 
Our Declaration of Independence says: ! 


“We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all 
men are created equal; that they are endowed by their 
Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among 
these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. 
That to secure these rights, governments are instituted 
among men, deriving their gust powers from the consent 
of the governed.”’ 


I have quoted so much at this time merely to show 
that, according to our ancient faith, the just powers of 
governments are derived from the consent of the gov- 
erned. Now the relation of master and slave is pro 
tanto,? a total violation of this principle. The master 
not only governs the slave without his consent, but he 

1 Note how this idea is developed in the Gettysburg Address 


(p. 202). 


2 By so much. r 


18 Abraham Lincoln 


governs him by a set of rules altogether different from 
those which he prescribes for himself. Allow all the 
governed an equal voice in the government, and that, 
and that only, is self-government. 

Let it not be said I am contending for the establish- 
ment of political and social equality between the whites 
and blacks. I have already said the contrary. I am 
not combating the argument of necessity, arising from 
the fact that the blacks are already among us; but Iam 
combating what is set up as moral argument for allow- 
ing them to be taken where they have never yet been — 
arguing against the extension of a bad thing, which, 
where it already exists, we must of necessity manage as 
we best can. 

In support of his application of the doctrine of self- 
government, Senator Douglas has sought to bring to his 
aid the opinions and examples of our Revolutionary 
fathers. I am glad he has done this. I love the senti- 
ments of those old-time men, and shall be most happy 
to abide by their opinions. He shows us that when it 
was in contemplation for the colonies to break off from 
Great Britain, and set up a new government for them- 
selves, several of the states instructed their delegates to 
go for the measure, provided each state should be al- 
lowed to regulate its domestic concerns in its own way. 
1 do not quote; but thisin substance. This was right ; 
I see nothing objectionable in it. I also think it prob- 
able that it had some reference to the existence of 
slavery among them. I will not deny that it had. But 
had it any reference to the carrying of slavery into new 
countries? That is the question, and we will let the 
fathers themselves answer it. 


Addresses and Letters 19 


This same generation of men, and mostly the same 
individuals of the generation who declared this principle, 
who declared independence, who fought the War of the 
Revolution through, who afterward made the Constitu- 
tion under which we still live — these same men passed 
the Ordinance of ’87, declaring that slavery should 
never go to the Northwest Territory. I have no doubt 
Judge Douglas thinks they were very inconsistent in 
this. It is a question of discrimination between them 
and him. But there is not an inch of ground left for 
his claiming that their opinions, their example, their 
authority, are on his side in the controversy. 


Some men, mostly Whigs, who condemn the repeal of 
the Missouri Compromise, nevertheless hesitate to go 
for its restoration, lest they be thrown in company with 
the Abolitionists. Will they allow me, as an old Whig, 
to tell them, good-humoredly, that I think this is very 
silly? Stand with anybody that stands right. Stand 
with him while he is right, and part with him when he 
goes wrong. Stand with the Abolitionist in restoring 
the Missouri Compromise, and stand against him when 
he attempts to repeal the fugitive-slave law. In the 
latter case you stand with the Southern disunionist. 
What of that? You are still right. In both cases you 
are right. In both cases you expose the dangerous ex- 
tremes. In both you stand on middle ground, and 
hold the ship level and steady. In both you are na- 
tional, and nothing less than national. This is the 
good old Whig ground.! To desert such ground be- 


1 Lincoln wanted to prevent any attempt to class him with the 
Abolitionists. 


20 Abraham Lincoln 


cause of any company, is to be less than a Whig — less 
than a man — less than an American. 

I particularly object to the new position which the 
avowed principle of this Nebraska law gives to slavery 
in the body politic. I object to it because it assumes 
that there can be moral right in the enslaving of one 
man by another. I object to it as a dangerous dalliance 
for a free people — a sad evidence that, feeling pros- 
perity, we forget right; that liberty, as a principle, we 
have ceased to revere. I object to it because the fathers 
of the republic eschewed and rejected it. The argu- 
ment of ‘‘necessity’’ was the only argument they ever 
admitted in favor of slavery; and so far, and so far 
only, as it carried them did it ever go. They found the 
institution existing among us, which they could not 
help, and they cast blame upon the British king for 
having permitted its introduction. Before the Con- 
stitution they prohibited its introduction into the 
Northwestern Territory, the only country we owned 
then free from it. At the framing and adoption of the 
Constitution, they forbore to so much as mention the 
word ‘‘slave”’ or ‘“‘slavery’’ in the whole instrument. 
In the provision for the recovery of fugitives, the slave 
is spoken of as a “person held in service or labor.”’ In 
that prohibiting the abolition of the African slave-trade 
for twenty years, that trade is spoken of as “the migra- 
tion or importation of such persons as any of the states 
now existing shall think proper to admit,” etc. These 
are the only provisions alluding to slavery. Thus the 
thing is hid away in the Constitution, just as an afflicted 
man hides away a wen or cancer which he dares not cut 
out at once, lest he bleed to death — with the promise, 


Addresses and Letters 21 


nevertheless, that the cutting may begin at a certain 
time. Less than this our fathers could not do, and more 
they would not do. Necessity drove them so far, and 
further they would not go. But this is not all. The 
earliest Congress under the Constitution took the same 
view of slavery. They hedged and hemmed it in to the 
narrowest limits of necessity.1 


But Nebraska is urged as a great Union-saving 
measure. Well, I too go for saving the Union. Much 
as I hate slavery, I would consent to the extension of it 
rather than see the Union dissolved, just as I would 
consent to any great evil to avoid a greater one.?, But 
when I go to Union-saving, I must believe, at least, that 
the means I employ have some adaptation to the end. 
To my mind, Nebraska has no such adaptation. 


“Tt hath no relish of salvation in it.”’ 


It is an aggravation, rather, of the only one thing 
which ever endangers the Union. When it came upon 
us, all was peace and quiet. The nation was looking 
to the forming of new bonds of union, and a long course 
of peace and prosperity seemed to lie before us. In 
the whole range of possibility, there scarcely appears to 
me to have been anything out of which the slavery agi- 
tation could have been revived, except the very project 
of repealing the Missouri Compromise. Every inch of 
territory we owned already had a definite settlement of 
the slavery question, by which all parties were pledged 
to abide. Indeed, there was no uninhabited country 


1 He develops this in his Cooper Union Address (p. 109). 
2 See letter to Horace Greeley (p. 168). 


22 Abraham Lincoln 


on the continent which we could acquire, if we except 
some extreme northern regions which are wholly out of 
the question. 

In this state of affairs the Genius of Discord himself 
could scarcely have invented a way of again setting us 
by the ears but by turning back and destroying the 
peace measures of the past. The counsels of that Gen- 
ius seem to have prevailed. The Missouri Compromise 
was repealed; and here we are in the midst of a new 
slavery agitation, such, I think, as we have never seen 
before. Who is responsible for this? Is it those who 
resist the measure, or those who causelessly brought it 
forward and pressed it through, having reason to know, 
and in fact knowing it, it must and would be resisted ? 
It could not but be expected by its author that it would 
be looked upon as a measure for the extension of slavery, 
aggravated by a gross breach of faith. 

Argue as you will and long as you will, this is the 
naked front and aspect of the measure. And in this 
aspect it could not but produce agitation. Slavery is 
founded in the selfishness of man’s nature — opposition 
to it in his love of justice. These principles are an 
eternal antagonism, and when brought into collision so 
fiercely as slavery extension brings them, shocks and 
throes and convulsions must ceaselessly follow.' Re- 
peal the Missouri Compromise, repeal all compromises, 
repeal the Declaration of Independence, repeal all past 
history, you still cannot repeal human nature. It still 
will be the abundance of man’s heart that slavery ex- 


1 Note that this idea is developed in the speech at the Republican 
Convention, Springfield, June 16, 1858 (p. 26). 


Addresses and Letters 23 


tension is wrong, and out of the abundance of his heart 
his mouth will continue to speak.! 


But now it is to be transformed into a “sacred right.” 
Nebraska brings it forth, places it on the highroad to 
extension and perpetuity, and with a pat on its back 
says to it, ‘Go, and God speed you.” Henceforth it 
is to be the chief jewel of the nation — the very figure- 
head of the Ship of State. Little by little, but steadily 
as man’s march to the grave, we have been giving up 
the old for the new faith. Near eighty years ago we 
began by declaring that all men are created equal; but 
now from that beginning we have run down to the other 
declaration, that for some men to enslave others is a 
“sacred right of self-government.’’ These principles 
cannot stand together. They are as opposite as God 
and Mammon; and whoever holds to the one must de- 
spise the other.? 


Finally, the Judge invokes against me the memory of 
Clay and Webster. They were great men, and men of 
great deeds. But where have I assailed them? For 
what is it that their lifelong enemy shall now make 
profit by assuming to defend them against me, their 
lifelong friend? I go against the repeal of the Missouri 
Compromise; did they ever go for it? They went for 
the compromises of 1850; did I ever go against them? 
They were greatly devoted to the Union; to the small 
measure of my ability was I ever less so? Clay and 


1 See Matthew, xii, 33-35: Luke, vi, 43-45. 
2 The germ of his Springfield Convention Speech. 


24 Abraham Lincoln 


Webster were dead before this question arose; by what 
authority shall our senator say they would espouse his 
side of it if alive? Mr. Clay was the leading spirit in 
making the Missouri Compromise; is it very credible 
that if now alive he would take the lead in the breaking 
of it? The truth is that some support from Whigs is 
now a necessity with the Judge, and for this it is that 
the names of Clay and Webster are invoked. His old 
friends have deserted him in such numbers as to leave 
too few to live by. He came to his own, and his own 
received him not; and lo! he turns unto the Gentiles. 


Letter to George Robertson 


The question which Lincoln asks in the last paragraph of 
this letter is one that was forcing itself upon him (see Peoria 
speech, p. 12) until he burst out with it in his Springfield 
‘‘house-divided”’ address. Robertson, a prominent Ken- 
tuckian, had been a member of Congress, and Chief Justice 
of his own state. 


Springfield, Ill., August 15, 1855 
Hon. George Robertson, Lexington, Kentucky. 

My pear Sir: The volume you left for me has been 
received. IJ am really grateful for the honor of your 
kind remembrance, as well as for the book. The partial 
reading I have already given it has afforded me much 
of both pleasure and instruction. It was new to me 
that the exact question which led to the Missouri Com- 
promise had arisen before it arose in regard to Missouri, 
and that you had taken so prominent a part in it. 
Your short but able and patriotic speech upon that 
occasion has not been improved upon since by those 


Addresses and Letters 25 


holding the same views, and with all the lights you then 
had, the views you took appear to me as very reason- 
able. 

You are not a friend of slavery in the abstract. In 
that speech you spoke of “the peaceful extinction of 
slavery’? and used other expressions indicating your 
belief that the thing was, at some time, to have an end. 
Since then we have had thirty-six years of experience ; 
and this experience has demonstrated, I think, that 
there is no peaceful extinction of slavery in prospect 
for us. The signal failure of Henry Clay and other 
good and great men, in 1849, to effect anything in favor 
of gradual emancipation in Kentucky, together with a 
thousand other signs, extinguished that hope utterly. 
On the question of liberty, as a principle, we are not 
what we have been. When we were the political slaves 
of King George, and wanted to be free, we called the 
maxim that “‘all men are created equal”’ a self-evident 
truth, but now when we have grown fat, and have lost 
all dread of being slaves ourselves, we have become so 
greedy to be masters that we call the same maxim “a 
self-evident le.’? The Fourth of July has not quite 
dwindled away; it is still a great day — for burning 
fire-crackers ! 

That spirit which desired the peaceful extinction of 
slavery has itself become extinct with the occasion and 
the men of the Revolution. Under the impulse of that 
occasion, nearly half the states adopted systems of 
emancipation at once, and it is a significant fact that 
not a single state has done the like since. So far as 
peaceful, voluntary emancipation is concerned, the con- 
dition of the negro slave in America, scarcely less ter- 


26 Abraham Lincoln 


rible to the contemplation of a free mind, is now as 
fixed and hopeless of change for the better as that of the 
lost souls of the finally impenitent. The Autocrat of 
all the Russias will resign his crown and proclaim his 
subjects free Republicans, sooner than will our Ameri- 
can masters voluntarily give up their slaves. 

Our political problem now is, “Can we as a nation 
continue together permanently — forever — half slave, 
and half free?’”’ The problem is too mighty for me — 
may God in his mercy superintend the solution. 

Your much obliged friend, and humble servant, 

A. LINCOLN 


Speech at the Republican State Convention, Springfield 


Once aroused, Lincoln continued to take an active part in 
the fight in Illinois. In the presidential campaign of 1856 
he was a leader in the fight waged by the newly formed Re- 
publican party, and delivered more than fifty speeches in 
support of Frémont. When, therefore, the time came for 
selecting an adversary to dislodge Douglas from his seat in 
the United States Senate, Lincoln was the logical choice of 
the Republicans. The convention made its “first and only 
choice”’ on the afternoon of June 16, and that evening Lin- 
coln accepted the nomination in this speech. Knowing from 
experience that he would be misquoted, he departed from 
his usual custom and wrote out the entire address. Before 
delivering it he read it to a number of friends and was warned 
against using the ‘‘house-divided’’ idea. His law partner, 
Herndon, an Abolitionist, was the only one who approved. 
‘*No words could be more unpopular,’’ says one biographer, 
“‘than the divided house could not stand. Writers and 
speakers fell upon the fateful paragraph and tore it savagely.” 
A month later Lincoln challenged Douglas to debate. 


‘)'q ‘NOLONIHSVM “IVINONG] NIOONIT 
“buyng pun sr11io0H fig 1br.kdog 


ra 


LIBRARY 


UNIVERSITY OF ILLihe: 
URBANA 


Addresses and Letters 37 


[June 16, 1858] 

Mr. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN OF THE CONVEN- 
TION: If we could first know where we are and whither 
we are tending, we could better judge what to do and 
how to do it. 

We are now far into the fifth year since a policy! was 
initiated with the avowed object and confident promise 
of putting an end to slavery agitation. Under the 
operation of that policy, that agitation has not only 
not ceased, but has constantly augmented. In my 
opinion it will not cease until a crisis shall have been 
reached and passed. ‘A house divided ? against itself 
cannot stand.’ I believe this government cannot en- 
dure permanently, half slave and half free. I do not 
expect the Union to be dissolved, — I do not expect the 
house to fall; but I do expect it will cease to be divided. 
It will become all one thing, or all the other. Either the 
opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, 
and place it where the public mind shall rest in the be- 
lief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction ; or its 
advocates will push it forward till it shall become alike 
lawful in all the States, old as well as new, North as 
well as South. 

Have we no tendency to the latter condition? Let 
any one who doubts, carefully contemplate that now 
almost complete legal combination — piece of machin- 
ery, so to speak — compounded of the Nebraska doc- 
trine and the Dred Scott decision. Let him consider 
not only what work the machinery is adapted to do, and 
how well adapted; but also let him study the history 


1 The Kansas-Nebraska bill was passed on March 30, 1854. 
2 Matthew xii, 22-26. 


28 Abraham Lincoln 


of its construction, and trace, if he can, or rather fail, 
if he can, to trace the evidences of design and concert of 
action among its chief architects from the beginning. 

The new year of 1854 found slavery excluded from 
more than half the States by State constitutions, and 
from most of the national territory by congressional 
prohibition. Four days later 1! commenced the struggle 
which ended in repealing that congressional prohibi- 
tion. This opened all the national territory to slavery, 
and was the first point gained. 

But so far, Congress only had acted; and an indorse- 
ment by the people, real or apparent, was indispensable 
to save the point already gained and give chance for 
more. 

This necessity had not been overlooked, but had been 
provided for, as well as might be, in the notable argu- 
ment of Squatter Sovereignty, otherwise called sacred 
right of self-government, which latter phrase, though ex- 
pressive of the only rightful basis of any government, 
was so perverted in this attempted use of it, as to 
amount to just this: That if any one man choose to 
enslave another, no third man shall be allowed to ob- 
ject. That argument was incorporated into the Ne- 
braska bill itself, in the language which follows: “It 
being the true intent and meaning of this act, not to 
legislate slavery into any Territory or State, nor to ex- 
clude it therefrom; but to leave the people thereof 
perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic insti- 
tutions in their own way, subject only to the Constitu- 
tion of the United States.” Then opened the roar of 


1 Douglas introduced the original Nebraska bill on January 4, 1854. 


Addresses and Letters 29 


loose declamation in favor of Squatter Sovereignty and 
sacred right of self-government. “But,” said opposition 
members, ‘‘let us amend the bill so as to expressly de- 
clare that the people of the Territory may exclude 
slavery.” ‘Not we,” said the friends of the measure, 
and down they voted the amendment. 

While the Nebraska bill was passing through Con- 
gress, a law case, involving the question of a negro’s 
freedom, by reason of his owner having voluntarily 
taken him first into a free State and then into a Ter- 
ritory covered by the congressional prohibition, and 
held him as a slave for a long time in each, was passing 
through the United States Circuit Court for the Dis- 
trict of Missour1; and both Nebraska bill and lawsuit 
were brought to a decision, in the same month of May, 
1854. The negro’s name was ‘Dred Scott,” which 
name now designates the decision finally rendered in 
the case. Before the then next presidential election, 
the law case came to, and was argued in, the Supreme 
Court of the United States; but the decision of it was 
deferred until after the election. Still, before the elec- 
tion, Senator Trumbull, ! on the floor of the Senate, re- 
quested the leading advocate of the Nebraska bill to 
state his opinion whether the people of a Terrritory can 
constitutionally exclude slavery from their limits, and 
the latter answers: “That is a question for the Supreme 
Court.” 

The election came. Mr. Buchanan was elected, and 
the indorsement, such as it was, secured. That was the 
second point gained. The indorsement, however, fell 


1The Anti-Douglas Democrat from Illinois for whom Lincoln 
had stepped aside in 1854. (See introduction.) 


30 Abraham Lincoln 


short ! of a clear popular majority by nearly four hun- 
dred thousand votes, and so, perhaps, was not over- 
whelmingly reliable and satisfactory. The outgoing 
President, in his last annual message, as impressively as 
possible echoed back upon the people the weight and 
authority of the indorsement. The Supreme Court met 
again; did not announce their decision, but ordered a 
reargument. The presidential inauguration came, and 
still no decision of the Court; but the incoming Presi- 
dent in his inaugural address fervently exhorted the 
people to abide by the forthcoming decision, what- 
ever it might be. Then, in a few days, came the 
decision. 

The reputed author of the Nebraska bill finds an early 

occasion to make a speech at this capitol, indorsing the 
Dred Scott decision, and vehemently denouncing all 
‘opposition to it. The new President, too, seizes the 
early occasion of the Silliman letter? to indorse and 
strongly construe that decision, and to express his 
astonishment that any different view had ever been 
entertained ! 

At length a squabble springs up between the Presi- 
dent and the author of the Nebraska bill, on the mere 
question of fact whether the Lecompton constitution 
was, or was not, in any just sense, made by the people 
of Kansas; and in that quarrel, the latter declares that 
all he wants is a fair vote for the people, and that he 
cares not whether slavery be voted down or voted up. 


1 President Buchanan’s vote was less than the combined vote of 
the Republicans and Know-Nothings. 

2 Addressed to President Buchanan by Professor Silliman (of Yale) 
and others, upon the condition of Kansas. 


Addresses and Letters 31 


I do not understand his declaration that he cares not 
whether slavery be voted down or voted up, to be in- 
tended by him other than as an apt definition of the 
policy he would impress upon the public mind, — the 
principle for which he declares he has suffered so much, 
and is ready to suffer to the end. And well may he 
cling to that principle. If he has any parental feeling, 
well may he cling to it. That principle is the only shred 
left of his original Nebraska doctrine. Under the Dred 
Scott decision, ‘“‘squatter sovereignty”? squatted out of 
existence, tumbled down like temporary scaffolding ; 
_ hike the mould at the foundry, it served through one 
blast, and fell back into loose sand, — helped to carry 
an election, and then was kicked to the winds. His late 
joint struggle with the Republicans against the Le- 
compton constitution involves nothing of the original 
Nebraska doctrine. That struggle was made on a 
point — the right of the people to make their own con- 
stitution — upon which he and the Republicans have 
never differed. 

The several points of the Dred Scott decision in con- 
nection with Senator Douglas’s “care not’’ policy, con- 
stitute the piece of machinery in its present state of 
advancement. This was the third point gained. The 
working points of that machinery are: 

First. That no negro slave, imported as such from 
Africa, and no descendant of such slave, can ever be a 
citizen of any State, in the sense of that term as used in 
the Constitution of the United States. This point is 
made in order to deprive the negro, in every possible 
event, of the benefit of that provision of the United 
States Constitution which declares that ‘the citizens of 


32 Abraham Lincoln 


each State shall be entitled to all privileges and im- 
munities of citizens in the several States.” 

Secondly. That ‘subject to the Constitution of the 
United States,” neither Congress nor a territorial legis- 
lature can exclude slavery from any United States 
Territory. This point is made in order that individual 
men may fill up the Territories with slaves, without 
danger of losing them as property, and thus enhance 
the chances of permanency to the institution through 
all the future. 

Thirdly. That whether the holding a negro in actual 
slavery in a free State makes him free as against the 
holder, the United States Courts will not decide, but 
will leave to be decided by the courts of any slave State 
the negro may be forced into by the master. This 
point is made, not to be pressed immediately ; but if 
acquiesced in for a while, and apparently indorsed by 
the people at an election, then to sustain the logical con- 
clusion that what Dred Scott’s master might lawfully 
do with Dred Scott in the free State of Illinois, every 
other master may lawfully do, with any other one, or one 
thousand slaves in Illinois, or in any other free State. 

Auxiliary to all this, and working hand-in-hand with 
it, the Nebraska doctrine, or what is left of it, is to 
educate and mould public opinion not to care whether 
slavery is voted down or voted up. This shows ex- 
actly where we now are, and partially, also, whither we 
are tending. 

It will throw additional light on the latter, to go back, 
and run the mind over the string of historical facts al- 
ready stated. Several things will now appear less dark 
and mysterious than they did when they were trans- 


Addresses and Letters 33 


piring. The people were to be left ‘perfectly free,”’ 
“subject only to the Constitution.” What the Con- 
stitution had to do with it, outsiders could not then see. 
Plainly enough now: it was an exactly fitted niche for 
the Dred Scott decision to afterwards come in, and 
declare the perfect freedom of the people to be just no 
freedom at all. Why was the amendment expressly 
declaring the right of the people voted down? Plainly 
enough now: the adoption of it would have spoiled the 
niche for the Dred Scott decision. Why was the Court 
decision held up? Why even a Senator’s individual 
opinion withheld till after the presidential election? 
Plainly enough now: the speaking out then would have 
damaged the perfectly free argument upon which the 
election was to be carried. Why was the outgoing Presi- 
dent’s! felicitation on the indorsement? Why the 
delay of areargument? Why the incoming President’s? 
advance exhortation in favor of the decision? These 
things look like the cautious patting and petting of a 
spirited horse, preparatory to mounting him, when it 
is dreaded that he may give the rider a fall. And why 
the hasty after-indorsement of the decision by the 
President and others? 

We cannot absolutely know that all these adapta- 
tions are the result of preconcert. But when we see a 
lot of framed timbers, different portions of which we 
know have been gotten out at different times and 
places, and by different workmen — Stephen, Frank- 
lin, ? Roger, and James, for instance — and when we 


1 Pierce. 2 Buchanan. 
3 Stephen A. Douglas, Franklin Pierce, Roger Taney, and James 
Buchanan. 


34 Abraham Lincoln 


see those timbers joined together, and see they exactly 
make the frame of a house or a mill, all the tenons and 
mortices exactly fitting, and all the lengths and propor- 
tions of the different pieces exactly adapted to their 
respective places, and not a piece too many or too few, 
not omitting even scaffolding — or if a single piece be 
lacking, we see the place in the frame exactly fitted and 
prepared yet to bring such piece in — in such a case, we 
find it impossible not to believe that Stephen and 
Franklin and Roger and James all understood one an- 
other from the beginning, and all worked upon a com- 
mon plan or draft, drawn up before the first blow was 
struck. 

It should not be overlooked that by the Nebraska 
bill the people of a State as well as Territory were to be 
left “perfectly free,” ‘subject only to the Constitu- 
tion.” Why mention a State? They were legislating 
for Territories, and not for or about States. Certainly 
the people of a State are and ought to be subject to the 
Constitution of the United States; but why is mention 
of this lugged into this merely territorial law? Why 
are the people of a Territory and the people of a State 
therein lumped together, and their relation to the Con- 
stitution therein treated as being precisely the same? 
While the opinion of the Court by Chief Justice Taney, 
in the Dred Scott case, and the separate opinions of all 
the concurring judges, expressly declare that the Con- 
stitution of the United States neither permits Congress 
nor a territorial legislature to exclude slavery from any 
United States Territory, they all omit to declare whether 
or not the same Constitution permits a State or the 
people of a State to exclude it. Possibly this is a mere 


Addresses and Letters 35 


omission; but who can be quite sure if McLean or 
Curtis! had sought to get into the opinion a declara- 
tion of unlimited power in the people of a State to ex- 
clude slavery from their limits, — just as Chase? and 
Mace sought to get such declaration in behalf of the 
people of a Territory, into the Nebraska bill, — I ask 
who can be quite sure that it would not have been voted 
down in the one case as it had been in the other? The 
nearest approach to the point of declaring the power of 
a State over slavery is made by Judge Nelson. He 
approaches it more than once, using the precise idea, 
and almost the language too, of the Nebraska act. On 
one occasion his exact language is ‘‘except in cases 
where the power is restrained by the Constitution of 
the United States, the law of the State is supreme over 
the subject of slavery within its jurisdiction.” In 
what cases the power of the State is so restrained by 
the United States Constitution is left an open question, 
precisely as the same question, as to the restraint on 
the power of the Territories, was left open in the Ne- 
braska act. Put this and that together, and we have 
another nice little niche, which we may, ere long, see 
filled with another Supreme Court decision, declaring 
that the Constitution of the United States does not 
permit a State to exclude slavery from its limits. And 
this may especially be expected if the doctrine of “care 
not whether slavery be voted down or voted up”’ shall 


1 Supreme Court Justices who dissented from the majority decision 
in the Dred Scott Case. 

2 Chase (afterwards in Lincoln’s cabinet) a senator from Ohio who 
opposed Douglas in the senate. Mace, an Indiana congressman who 
also opposed the Kansas-Nebraska bill. 


36 Abraham Lincoln 


gain upon the public mind sufficiently to give promise 
that such a decision can be maintained when made. 
Such a decision is all that slavery now lacks of be- 
ing alike lawful in all the States. Welcome or unwel- 
come, such decision is probably coming, and will soon 
be upon us, unless the power of the present political 
dynasty ' shall be met and overthrown. We shall lie 
down, pleasantly dreaming that the people of Missouri 
are. on the verge of making their State free, and we 
shall awake to the reality instead, that the Supreme 
Court has made Illinois a slave State. To meet and 
overthrow the power of that dynasty is the work now 
before all those who would prevent that consummation. 
That is what we have to do. How can we best do it? 
There are those who denounce us openly to their own 
friends, and yet whisper to us softly that Senator 
Douglas is the aptest instrument there is with which 
to effect that object.? They wish us to infer all from 
the fact that he now has a little quarrel with the pres- 
ent head of that dynasty, and that he has regularly voted 
with us on a single point, upon which he and we have 
never differed. They remind us that he is a great man 
and that the largest of us are very small ones. Let this 
be granted. But “a living dog is better than a dead 
lion.” Judge Douglas, if not a dead lion, for this work 
is at least a caged and toothless one. How can he op- 
pose the advances of slavery? He don’t care anything 


1The Democrat, Buchanan had succeeded the Democrat, Pierce, 
and Douglas was generally regarded as certain of the next election. 

2 Many anti-slavery men believed that Douglas should not have 
been opposed for re-election, because he seemed to be turning against 
the extremists of his own party, especially in his violent objection to 
the Lecompton Constitution. 


Addresses and Letters 37 


about it. His avowed mission is impressing the ‘‘ pub- 
lic heart’”’ to care nothing about it. A leading Douglas 
Democratic newspaper thinks Douglas’s superior talent 
will be needed to resist the revival of the African slave- 
trade. Does Douglas believe an effort to revive that 
trade is approaching? He has not said so. Does he 
really think so? But if it is, how can he resist it? For 
years he has labored to prove it a sacred right of white 
men to take negro slaves into the new territories. Can 
he possibly show that it is a less sacred right to buy 
them where they can be bought cheapest? And un- 
questionably they can be bought cheaper in Africa than 
in Virginia. He has done all in his power to reduce the 
whole question of slavery to one of a mere right of prop- 
erty : and, as such, how can he oppose the foreign slave 
trade? — how can he refuse that trade in that property 
shall be “perfectly free,’ unless he does it as a protec- 
tion to the home production? And as the home pro- 
ducers will probably not ask the protection, he will be 
wholly without a ground of opposition. 

Senator Douglas holds, we know, that a man may 
rightfully be wiser to-day than he was yesterday — 
that he may rightfully change when he finds himself 
wrong. But can we, for that reason, run ahead, and 
infer that he will make any particular change, of which 
he himself has given no intimation? Can we safely 
base our action upon any such vague inference? 

Now, as ever, I wish not to misrepresent Judge 
Douglas’s position, question his motives, or do aught 
that can be personally offensive to him. Whenever, if 
ever, he and we can come together on principle, so that 
our cause may have assistance from his great ability, I 


38 Abraham Lincoln 


hope to have interposed no adventitious obstacle. But, 
clearly, he is not now with us — he does not pretend to 
be — he does not promise ever to be. 

Our cause, then, must be intrusted to, and conducted 
by, its own undoubted friends — those whose hands are 
free, whose hearts are in the work, who do care for the 
result. Two years ago! the Republicans of the nation 
mustered over thirteen hundred thousand strong. We 
did this under the single impulse of resistance to a com- 
mon danger, with every external circumstance against 
us. Of strange, discordant, and even hostile elements, 
we gathered from the four winds, and formed and fought 
the battle through, under the constant hot fire of a dis- 
ciplined, proud, and pampered enemy. Did we brave 
all then to falter now ? — now, when that same enemy is 
wavering, dissevered, and belligerent? The result is 
not doubtful. We shall not fail. If we stand firm, we 
shall not fail. Wise counsels may accelerate or mistakes 
delay it ; but sooner or later the victory is sure to come. 


The Challenge to Douglas 

Chicago, Ill., July 24, 1858 

Hon. 8. A. Douglas 
My pear Sir: Will it be agreeable to you to make 
an arrangement for you and myself to divide time, and 
address the same audiences the present canvass? Mr. 
Judd, who will hand you this, will receive your answer ; 
and, if agreeable to you, will enter into the terms of 


such arrangement. 
Your obedient servant, 
A. LINCOLN 


1The vote for president was: Buchanan, 1,840,000; Frémont, 
1,340,000; Fillmore, 875,000. 


Addresses and Letters 39 


The First Lincoln-Douglas Debate 


No political debates in the history of our country have 
been more dramatic, more picturesque, or more far-reaching 
in their consequences than the seven debates between Lin- 
ecoln and Douglas in Illinois in 1858. Everyone heard at 
least one of the meetings between the gaunt lawyer of Spring- 
field and the domineering little Judge. The scene at each 
place resembled a county fair: there were muddy farm wag- 
ons that had trudged miles; there were blaring brass bands 
and mountebanks; there were peddlers selling watermelons, 
lemonade, and pain-killers. The crowds were huge. Twenty 
thousand people heard the first debate. For the most part 
the conflict was a rough and tumble affair. Personalities 
and interruptions by the crowd were frequent. As Illinois 
was a Democratic stronghold, Douglas had the better of it 
in arrangements. He had the private railway car belonging 
to George B. McClellan at his disposal, and was escorted 
through the towns by a brass band. Lincoln’s party, on 
the other hand, met their man at the station with a hay 
rack and drove him to the meeting place. The agreement 
provided that the first speaker should have an hour, the sec- 
ond an hour and a half, and then the first half an hour. As 
Douglas opened the first debate, he had the advantage of 
opening and closing four of the seven. 


[Ottawa, Illinois, Aug. 21, 1858] 
DOoUGLAS’S OPENING SPEECH 


LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, — I appear before you to-day for 
the purpose of discussing the leading political topics which 
now agitate the public mind. By an arrangement between 
Mr. Lincoln and myself, we are present here to-day for the 
purpose of having a joint discussion, as the representatives of 
the two great political parties of the State and Union, upon 
the principles in issue between those parties; and this vast 
concourse of people shows the deep feeling which pervades 
the public mind in regard to the questions dividing us. 


40 Abraham Lincoln 


Prior to 1854, this country was divided into two great 
political parties, known as the Whig and Democratic parties. 
Both were national and patriotic, advocating principles that 
were universal in their application. An old-line Whig could 
proclaim his principles in Louisiana and Massachusetts alike. 
Whig principles had no boundary sectional line: they were 
not limited by the Ohio River, nor by the Potomac, nor by 
the line of the free and slave States, but applied and were pro- 
claimed wherever the Constitution ruled or the American 
flag waved over the American soil. So it was and so it is 
with the great Democratic party, which, from the days of 
Jefferson until this period, has proven itself to be the historic 
party of this nation. While the Whig and Democratic par- 
ties differed in regard to a bank, the tariff, distribution, the 
specie circular, and the sub-treasury, they agreed on the great 
slavery question which now agitates the Union. I say that 
the Whig party and the Democratic party agreed on the 
slavery question, while they differed on those matters of ex- 
pediency to which I have referred. The Whig party and the 
Democratic party jointly adopted the compromise measures 
of 1850 as the basis of a proper and just solution of the slav- 
ery question in all its forms. Clay was the great leader, with 
Webster on his right and Cass on his left, and sustained by 
the patriots in the Whig and Democratic ranks who had de- 
vised and enacted the compromise measures of 1850.4 

In 1851 the Whig party and the Democratic party united 
in Illinois in adopting resolutions indorsing and approving 
the principles of the compromise measures of 1850 as the 
proper adjustment of that question. In 1852, when the Whig 
party assembled in convention at Baltimore for the purpose 
of nominating a candidate for the presidency, the first thing 
it did was to declare the compromise measures of 1850, in 
substance and in principle, a suitable adjustment of that 
question. [Here the speaker was interrupted by loud and 
long-continued applause.] My friends, silence will be more 


1 The student should note this loose method of arguing. If these 
statements were true then Seward and Chase were not patriots, for 
they violently opposed the Compromise of 1850. 


Addresses and Letters 4\ 


acceptable to me in the discussion of these questions than 
applause. I desire to address myself to your judgment, your 
understanding, and your consciences, and not to your passions 
or your enthusiasm. When the Democratic convention as- 
sembled in Baltimore in the same year, for the purpose of 
nominating a Democratic candidate for the presidency, it 
also adopted the compromise measures of 1850 as the basis 
of Democratic action. Thus you see that up to 1853-54 the 
Whig party and the Democratic party both stood on the same 
platform with regard to the slavery question.!. That plat- 
form was the right of the people of each State and each Terri- 
tory to decide their local and domestic institutions tor them- 
selves, subject only to the Federal Constitution. 

During the session of Congress of 1853-54 I introduced into 
the Senate of the United States a bill to organize the Terri- 
tories of Kansas and Nebraska on that principle which had 
been adopted in the compromise measures of 1850, approved 
by the Whig party and the Democratic party in Illinois in 
1851, and indorsed by the Whig party and the Democratic 
party in national convention in 1852.2. In order that there 
might be no misunderstanding in relation to the principle 
involved in the Kansas and Nebraska bill, I put forth the true 
intent and meaning of the act in these words: ‘‘It is the true 
intent and meaning of this act not to legislate slavery into 
any State or Territory, or to exclude it therefrom, but to 
leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate 
their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to 
the Federal Constitution.’’ Thus you see that up to 1854, 
when the Kansas and Nebraska bill was brought into Congress 
for the purpose of carrying out the principles which both 
parties had up to that time indorsed and approved, there had 
been no division in this country in regard to that principle 
except the opposition of the Abolitionists. In the House of 
Representatives of the Illinois legislature, upon a resolution 


1 Tt would be more accurate to say that each party was hopelessly 
split into two factions on the slavery question, and trying to deny it. 

2 A serious misrepresentation. The Compromise of 1850 did not 
repeal the Missouri Compromise; the Kansas-Nebraska bill did. 


42 Abraham Lincoln 


asserting that principle, every Whig and every Democrat in 
the House voted in the affirmative, and only four men voted 
against it, and those four were old-line Abolitionists.! 

In 1854 Mr. Abraham Lincoln and Mr. Lyman Trumbull 
entered into an arrangement, one with the other, and each 
with his respective friends, to dissolve the old Whig party 
on the one hand, and to dissolve the old Democratic party on 
the other, and to connect the members of both into an Aboli- 
tion party, under the name and disguise of a Republican party. 
The terms of that arrangement between Lincoln and Trum- 
bull have been published by Linecoln’s special friend, James 
H. Matheny, Esq.; and they were that Lincoln should have 
General Shields’s place in the United States Senate, which 
was then about to become vacant, and that Trumbull should 
have my seat when my term expired. Lincoln went to work 
to Abolitionize the Old Whig party all over the State, pre- 
tending that he was then as good a Whig as ever; and Trum- 
bull went to work in his part of the State preaching Aboli- 
tionism in its milder and lighter form, and trying to Aboli- 
tionize the Democratic party, and bring old Democrats hand- 
cuffed and bound hand and foot into the Abolition camp. 
In pursuance of the arrangement the parties met at Spring- 
field in October, 1854, and proclaimed their new platform. 
Lincoln was to bring into the Abolition camp the old-line 
Whigs, and transfer them over to Giddings, Chase, Fred 
Douglass, and Parson Lovejoy, who were ready to receive 
them and christen them in their new faith. They laid down 
on that oceasion a platform for their new Republican party, 
which was thus to be constructed. I have the resolutions 
of the State convention then held, which was the first mass 
State convention ever held in Illinois by the Black Republican 
party; and I now hold them in my hands and will read a 
part of them, and cause the others to be printed. Here are 
the most important and material resolutions of this Abolition 
platform : — ? 


1 Watch Douglas’s attempt to tie an Abolitionist label on Lincoln. 
2 Douglas had no foundation for these statements. The ‘‘plat- 
form’’ was a forgery. Read Lincoln’s Reply. 


a 


Addresses and Letters 43 


1. Resolved, That we believe this truth to be self-evident, 
that, when parties become subversive of the ends for which 
they are established, or incapable of restoring the government 
to true principles of the Constitution, it is the right and duty 
of the people to dissolve the political bands by which they 
may have been connected therewith, and to organize new 
parties upon such principles and with such views as the cir- 
cumstances and the exigencies of the nation may demand. 

2. Resolved, That the times imperatively demand the re- 
organization of parties, and, repudiating all previous party 
attachments, names, and predilections, we unite ourselves 
together in defence of the liberty and Constitution of the 
country, and will hereafter co-operate as the Republican 
party, pledged to the accomplishment of the following pur- 
poses: to bring the administration of the government back 
to the control of first principles; to restore Nebraska and 
Kansas to the position of free Territories; that, as the Con- 
stitution of the United States vests in the States, and not in 
Congress, the power to legislate for the extradition of fugi- 
tives from labor, to repeal and entirely abrogate the Fugi- 
tive-Slave law; to restrict slavery to those States in which 
it exists; to prohibit the admission of any more slave States 
into the Union; to abolish slavery in the District of Colum- 
bia; to exclude slavery from all the Territories over which 
the general government has exclusive jurisdiction; and to 
resist the acquirement of any more Territories unless the 
practice of slavery therein forever shall have been pro- 
hibited. 

3. Resolved, That in furtherance of these principles we 
will use such constitutional and lawful means as shall seem 
best adapted to their accomplishment, and that we will 
support no man for office, under the general or State govern- 
ment, who is not positively and fully committed to the 
support of these principles, and whose personal character 
and conduct is not a guarantee that he is reliable, and who 
shall not have abjured old party allegiance and ties. 

Now, gentlemen, your Black Republicans have cheered 
every one of those propositions; and yet I venture to say 


44. Abraham Lincoln 


that you ecannot get Mr. Lincoln to come out and say that he 
is now in favor of each one of them. That these propositions, 
one and all, constitute the platform of the Black Republican 
party of this day, I have no doubt; and, when you were not 
aware for what purpose I was reading them, your Black Re- 
publicans cheered them as good Black Republican doctrines. 
My object in reading these resolutions was to put the ques- 
tion to Abraham Lincoln this day, whether he now stands 
and will stand by each article in that creed, and carry it out. 
I desire to know whether Mr. Lincoln to-day stands as he did 
in 1854, in favor of the unconditional repeal of the Fugitive- 
Slave law.! I desire him to answer whether he stands pledged 
to-day, as he did in 1854, against the admission of any more 
Slave States into the Union, even if the people want them. 
I want to know whether he stands pledged against the ad- 
mission of a new State into the Union with such a constitu- 
tion as the people of that State may see fit to make. I want 
to know whether he stands to-day pledged to the abolition of 
slavery in the District of Columbia. I desire him to answer 
whether he stands pledged to the prohibition of the slave 
trade between the different States. I desire to know whether 
he stands pledged to prohibit slavery in all the Territories 
of the United States, north as well as south of the Missouri 
Compromise line. I desire him to answer whether he is 
opposed to the acquisition of any more territory unless slav- 
ery is prohibited therein. J want his answer to these ques- 
tions. Your affirmative cheers in favor of this Abolition plat- 
form are not satisfactory. I ask Abraham Lincoln to answer 
these questions, in order that, when I trot him down to lower 
Egypt,? I may put the same questions to him. My prin- 
ciples are the same everywhere. I can proclaim them alike 
in the North, the South, the East, and the West. My prin- 
ciples will apply wherever the Constitution prevails and the 
American flag waves. I desire to know whether Mr. Lin- 


1 Lincoln, of course, never did favor the repeal of the Fugitive Slave 
Law. See his First Inaugural. 

2 Lower Egypt, the popular name for southern Illinois, across the 
river from Kentucky. 


Addresses and Letters AS 


coln’s principles will bear transplanting from Ottawa to 
Jonesboro. I put these questions to him to-day distinctly, 
and ask an answer. I havea right to an answer; for I quote 
from the platform of the Republican party, made by himself 
and others at the time that’ party was formed,! and the 
bargain made by Lincoln to dissolve and kill the Old Whig 
party, and transfer its members, bound hand and foot, to the 
Abolition party, under the direction of Giddings and Fred 
Douglass. In the remarks I have made on this platform, 
and the position of Mr. Lincoln upon it, I mean nothing per- 
sonally disrespectful or unkind to that gentleman. I have 
known him for nearly twenty-five years. There were many 
points of sympathy between us when we first got acquainted. 
We were both comparatively boys, and both struggling with 
poverty inastrange land. I was aschool-teacher in the town 
of Winchester, and he a flourishing grocery-keeper in the town 
of Salem. He was more successful in his occupation than I 
was in mine, and hence more fortunate in this world’s goods. 
Lincoln is one of those peculiar men who perform with ad- 
mirable skill everything which they undertake. I made as 
good a school-teacher as I could, and, when a cabinet-maker, 
I made a good bedstead and tables, although my old boss 
said I succeeded better with bureaus and secretaries than 
anything else;? but I believe that Lincoln was always more 
successful in business than I, for his business enabled him to 
get into the legislature. I met him there, however, and had 
sympathy with him, because of the up-hill struggle we both 
had in life. He was then just as good at telling an anecdote 
as now. He could beat any of the boys wrestling or running 
a foot-race, in pitching quoits or tossing a copper; could ruin 
more liquor than all the boys of the town together; * and the 


1A misstatement of fact. Lincoln had nothing to do with the 
founding of the Republican party in Illinois. He considered him- 
self ‘‘a good Whig’”’ and was very cautious about connecting himself 
with the new group. See Lincoln’s Reply. 

2Ts Douglas making a pun? 

3 An attempt, of course, to make ridiculous any moral argument 
that Lincoln might use against slavery. 


46 Abraham Lincoln 


dignity and impartiality with which he presided at a horse- 
race or fist-fight excited the admiration and won the praise of 
everybody that was present and participated. I sympa- 
thized with him because he was struggling with difficulties, 
and so was I. Mr. Lincoln served with me in the legislature 
in 1836, when we both retired; and he subsided or became 
submerged, and he was lost sight of as a public man for some 
years. In 1846, when Wilmot introduced his celebrated 
proviso, and the Abolition tornado swept over the country, 
Lincoln again turned up as a member of Congress from the 
Sangamon district. I was then in the Senate of the United 
States, and was glad to weleome my old friend and companion. 
Whilst in Congress, he distinguished himself by his opposition 
to the Mexican War, taking the side of the common enemy 
against his own country; and, when he returned home, he 
found that the indignation of the people followed him every- 
where, and he was again submerged, or obliged to retire into 
private life, forgotten by his former friends... He came up 
again in 1854, just in time to make this Abolition or Black 
Republican platform, in company with Giddings, Lovejoy, 
Chase, and Fred Douglass, for the Republican party to stand 
upon. Trumbull, too, was one of our own contemporaries. 
He was born and raised in old Connecticut, was bred a Fed- 
eralist, but, removing to Georgia, turned Nullifier when 
nullification was popular, and, as soon as he disposed of his 
clocks and wound up his business, migrated to Illinois, turned 
politician and lawyer here, and made his appearance in 1841 
as a member of the legislature. He became noted as the au- 
thor of the scheme to repudiate a large portion of the State 
debt of Illinois, which, if successful, would have brought in- 
famy and disgrace upon the fair escutcheon of our glorious 
State. The odium attached to that measure consigned him 
to oblivion for a time. I helped to do it. I walked into a 
public meeting in the hall of the House of Representatives, 
and replied to his repudiating speeches, and resolutions 
were carried over his head denouncing repudiation, and 


1This sentence contains two misstatements of fact. Lincoln 
opposed the scheme to fight Mexico, but he supported the War. 


Addresses and Letters 47 


asserting the moral and legal obligation of Illinois to pay 
every dollar of the debt she owed and every bond that bore 
her seal. Trumbull’s malignity has followed me since I 
thus defeated his infamous scheme. 

These two men, having formed this combination to Aboli- 
tionize the Old Whig party and the old Democratic party, 
and put themselves into the Senate of the United States, in 
pursuance of their bargain, are now carrying out that arrange- 
ment. Matheny states that Trumbull broke faith; that 
the bargain was that Lincoln should be the senator in Shields’s 
place, and Trumbull was to wait for mine; and the story goes 
that Trumbull cheated Lincoln, having control of four or 
five Abolitionized Democrats who were holding over in the 
Senate. He would not let them vote for Lincoln, which 
obliged the rest of the Abolitionists to support him in order 
to secure an Abolition senator. There are a number of au- 
thorities for the truth of this besides Matheny, and I suppose 
that even Mr. Lincoln will not deny it. 

Mr. Lincoln demands that he shall have the place intended 
for Trumbull, as Trumbull cheated him and got his; and 
Trumbull is stumping the State, traducing me for the purpose 
of securing the position for Lincoln, in order to quiet him. 
It was in consequence of this arrangement that the Republi- 
can convention was impanelled to instruct for Lincoln and 
nobody else; and it was on this account that they passed 
resolutions that he was their first, their last, and their only 
choice. Archy Williams was nowhere, Browning was no- 
body,2 Wentworth was not to be considered; they had no 
man in the Republican party for the place except Lincoln, 
for the reason that he demanded that they should carry out 
the arrangement. 

Having formed this new party for the benefit of deserters 
from Whiggery and deserters from Democracy, and having 


1 The facts, again, are not as Douglas represents them. 

2 The O. H. Browning to whom Lincoln wrote several notable letters 
during his presidency. See page 160. Douglas is trying to split 
the Republican ranks by making prominent members jealous of 
Lincoln. 


48 Abraham Lincoln 


laid down the Abolition platform which I have read, Lincoln 
now takes his stand and proclaims his Abolition doctrines. 
Let me read a part of them. In his speech at Springfield to the 
convention which nominated him for the Senate he said : — 


In my opinion, it will not cease until a crisis shall have been 
reached and passed. ‘‘A house divided against itself cannot stand.” 
I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and 
half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved, —I do not 
expect the house to fall, — but I do expect it will cease to be divided. 
It will become all one thing or all the other. Either the opponents 
of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and’ place it where the 
public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate 
extinction, or its advocates will push it forward till it shall become 
alike lawful in all the States, —old as well as new, North as well as 
South [‘‘ Good,” ‘‘Good,”’ and cheers.] 


I am delighted to hear you Black Republicans say, ‘‘Good.”’ 
I have no doubt that doctrine expresses your sentiments; 
and I will prove to you now, if you will listen to me, that it 
is revolutionary and destructive of the existence of this gov- 
ernment. Mr. Lincoln, in the extract from which I have 
read, says that this government cannot endure permanently 
in the same condition in which it was made by its framers — 
divided into free and slave States. He says that it has existed 
for about seventy years thus divided, and yet he tells you 
that it cannot endure permanently on the same principles 
and in the same relative condition in which our fathers made 
it. Why can it not exist divided into free and slave States? 
Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Madison, Hamilton, Jay, 
and the great men of that day made this government divided 
into free States and slave States, and left each State perfectly 
free to do as it pleased on the subject of slavery. Why can 
it not exist on the same principles on which our fathers made 
it?! They knew when they framed the Constitution that 
in a country as wide and broad as this, with such a variety of 
climate, production, and interest, the people necessarily re- 
quired different laws and institutions in different localities. 
They knew that the laws and regulations which would suit 


1 Lincoln makes this the subject of his Cooper Union Address. 


Addresses and Letters 49 


the granite hills of New Hampshire would be unsuited to the 
rice plantations of South Carolina: and they therefore pro- 
vided that each State should retain its own legislature and its 
own sovereignty, with the full and complete power to do as it 
pleased within its own limits, in all that was local and not 
national. One of the reserved rights of the States was the 
right to regulate the relations between master and servant, 
on the slavery question. At the time the Constitution was 
framed there were thirteen States in the Union, twelve of 
which were slaveholding States and one a free State. Sup- 
pose this doctrine of uniformity preached by Mr. Lincoln, that 
the States should all be free or all be slave, had prevailed ; 
and what would have been the result?! Of course, the twelve 
slaveholding States would have overruled the one free State; 
and slavery would have been fastened by a constitutional 
provision on every inch of the American republic, instead of 
being left, as our fathers wisely left it, to each State to decide 
for itself. Here I assert that uniformity in the local laws and 
institutions of the different States is neither possible nor de- 
sirable. If uniformity had been adopted when the govern- 
ment was established, it must inevitably have been the uni- 
formity of slavery everywhere, or else the uniformity of 
negro citizenship and negro equality everywhere. 

We are told by Lincoln that he is utterly opposed to the 
Dred Scott decision, and will not submit to it, for the reason 
that he says it deprives the negro of the rights and privileges 
of citizenship. That is the first and main reason which he 
assigns for his warfare on the Supreme Court of the United 
States and its decision. I ask you, Are you in favor of con- 
ferring upon the negro the rights and privileges of citizen- 
ship? Do you desire to strike out of our State constitution 
that clause which keeps slaves and free negroes out of the 
State, and allow the free negroes to flow in, and cover your 
prairies with black settlements? Do you desire to turn this 
beautiful State into a free negro colony, in order that, when 


1 Lincoln, as he frequently pointed out, did not ‘‘preach this 
doctrine,’’ but simply made a prediction that the county would be in 
time all slave, or all free. 


ae, Abraham Lincoln 


Missouri abolishes slavery, she can send one hundred thou- 
sand emancipated slaves into Illinois, to become citizens and 
voters, on an equality with yourselves? If you desire negro 
citizenship, if you desire to allow them to come into the Staté 
and settle with the white man, if you desire them to vote on 
an equality with yourselves, and to make them eligible to 
office, to serve on juries, and to adjudge your rights, then 
support Mr. Lincoln and the Black Republican party, who 
are in favor of the citizenship of the negro.! For one, I am 
opposed to negro citizenship in any and every form. I 
believe this government was made on the white basis. I be- 
lieve it was made by white men, for the benefit of white men 
and their posterity forever; and I am in favor of confining 
citizenship to white men, men of European birth and descent, 
instead of conferring it upon negroes, Indians, and other in- 
ferior races. 

Mr. Lincoln, following the example and lead of all the little 
Abolition orators who go around and lecture in the basements 
of schools and churches, reads from the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence that all men were created equal, and then asks how 
you can deprive a negro of that equality which God and the 
Declaration of Independence award to him? He and they 
maintain that negro equality is guaranteed by the laws of 
God, and that it is asserted in the Declaration of Indepen- 
dence. If they think so, of course they have a right to say 
so, and so vote. I do not question Mr. Lincoln’s conscien- - 
tious belief that the negro was made his equal, and henee is 
his brother; but, for my own part, I do not regard the negro 
as my equal, and positively deny that he is my brother or any 
kin to me whatever. Lincoln has evidently learned by heart 
Parson Lovejoy’s catechism. He can repeat it as well as 
Farnsworth, and he is worthy of a medal from Father Giddings 
and Fred Douglass for his Abolitionism. He holds that the 
negro was born his equal and yours, and that he was endowed 
with equality by the Almighty, and that no human law can 


1 This is not Lincoln’s position; he did not favor negro citizenship 
at this time. 


Copyright by Harris and Ewing. 


INTERIOR OF LINCOLN MEMORIAL. 
On the side walls are engraved the address at Gettysburg and the 


Second Inaugural. 


LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS — 
URBANA — 


Addresses and Letters SI 


deprive him of these rights which were guaranteed to him by 
the Supreme Ruler of the universe. Now I do not believe 
that the Almighty ever intended the negro to be the equal of 
the white man. If he did, he has been a long time demon- 
strating the fact. For thousands of years the negro has been 
a race upon the earth; and during all that time, in all lati- 
tudes and climates, wherever he has wandered or been taken, 
he has been inferior to the race which he has there met. 
He belongs to an inferior race, and must always occupy an 
inferior position. Ido not hold that, because the negro is our 
inferior, therefore he ought to be a slave. By no means can 
such a conclusion be drawn from what I have said. On the 
contrary, I hold that humanity and Christianity both require 
that the negro shall have and enjoy every right, every priv- 
ilege, and every immunity consistent with the safety of the 
society in which he lives. On that point, I presume, there 
ean be no diversity of opinion. You and I are bound to ex- 
tend to our inferior and dependent beings every right, every 
privilege, every facility and immunity consistent with the 
public good. The question then arises, What rights and priv- 
ileges are consistent with the public good? This is a question 
which each State and each Territory must decide for itself. 
Illinois has decided it for herself. We have provided that 
the negro shall not be a slave; and we have also provided 
that he shall not be a citizen, but protect him in his civil 
rights, in his life, his person, and his property, only depriving 
him of all political rights whatsoever, and refusing to put him 
on an equality with the white man. That policy of Illinois 
is satisfactory to the Democratic party and to me, and, if 
it were to the Republicans, there would then be no question 
upon the subject; but the Republicans say that he ought to 
be made a citizen, and, when he becomes a citizen, he becomes 
your equal, with all your rights and privileges. They assert 
the Dred Scott decision to be monstrous because it denies 
that the negro is or can be a citizen under the Constitution.! 

Now I hold that Illinois had a right to abolish and prohibit 


1 Lincoln did not hold this position. See his Reply, 


52 Abraham Lincoln 


slavery as she did, and I hold Kentucky has the same right to 
continue and protect slavery that Illinois had to abolish it. 
I hold that New York had as much right to abolish slavery 
as Virginia has to continue it, and that each and every State 
of this Union is a sovereign power, with the right to do as it 
pleases upon this question of slavery and upon all its domestic 
institutions. Slavery is not the only question which comes 
up in this controversy. There is a far more important one 
to you; and that is, What shall be done with the free negro? 
We have settled the slavery question as far as we are con- 
cerned: we have prohibited it in Illinois forever, and, in doing 
so, I think we have done wisely, and there is no man in the 
State who would be more strenuous in his opposition to the 
introduction of slavery than I would; but, when we settled 
it for ourselves, we exhausted all our power over that sub- 
ject.1. We have done our whole duty, and can do no more: 
We must leave each and every other State to decide for itself 
the same question. In relation to the policy to be pursued 
toward the free negroes, we have said that they shall not 
vote; whilst Maine, on the other hand, has said that they 
shall vote. Maine is a sovereign State, and has the power to 
regulate the qualifications of voters within her limits. I 
would never consent to confer the right of voting and of citi- 
zenship upon a negro, but still I am not going to quarrel 
with Maine for differing from me in opinion. Let Maine 
take care of her own negroes, and fix the qualifications of 
her own voters to suit herself, without interfering with II- 
linois; and Illinois will not interfere with Maine. So with 
the State of New York. She allows the negro to vote provided 
he owns two hundred and fifty dollars’ worth of property, 
but not otherwise. While I would not make any distinction 
whatever between a negro who held property and one who 
did not, yet, if the sovereign State of New York chooses to 
make that distinction, it is her business, and not mine; and 
I will not quarrel with her for it. She can do as she pleases 


1This is exactly where Lincoln and Douglas clash. Lincoln 
consistently held that slavery was a national, and not a local question. 


Addresses and Letters 53 


on this question if she minds her own business, and we will 
do the same thing. Now, my friends, if we will only act 
conscientiously and rigidly upon this great principle of popu- 
lar sovereignty, which guarantees to each State and Terri- 
tory the right to do as it pleases on all things local and domes- 
tic, instead of Congress interfering, we will continue at peace 
one with another. Why should Illinois be at war with Mis- 
souri, or Kentucky with Ohio, or Virginia with New York, 
merely because their institutions differ? Our fathers in- 
tended that our institutions should differ. They knew that 
the North and the South, having different climates, produc- 
tions, and interests, required different institutions. This 
doctrine of Mr. Lincoln, of uniformity among the institu- 
tions of the different States, is a new doctrine, never dreamed 
of by Washington, Madison, or the framers of this govern- 
ment. Mr. Lincoln and the Republican party set themselves 
up as wiser than these men who made this government, which 
has flourished for seventy years under the principle of popu- 
lar sovereignty, recognizing the right of each State to do as 
it pleased.1. Under that principle, we have grown from a 
nation of three or four millions to a nation of about thirty 
millions of people. We have crossed the Alleghany Moun- 
tains and filled up the whole Northwest, turning the prairie 
into a garden, and building up churches and schools, thus 
spreading civilization and Christianity where before there 
was nothing but savage barbarism. Under that principle 
we have become, from a feeble nation, the most powerful 
on the face of the earth; and, if we only adhere to that prin- 
ciple, we can go forward increasing in territory, in power, 
in strength, and in glory until the Republic of America shall 
be the north star that shall guide the friends of freedom 
throughout the civilized world. And why can we not adhere 
to the great principle of self-government upon which our in- 
stitutions were originally based? I believe that this new 
doctrine preached by Mr. Lincoln and his party will dissolve 


1 Misleading. For thirty-four years before the Kansas- Nebraska 
bill, the provisions of the Missouri Compromise had expressly for- 
bidden slavery in certain states. 


54 | Abraham Lincoln 


the Union if it succeeds. They are trying to array all the 
Northern States in one body against the South, to excite a 
sectional war between the free States and the slave States, 
in order that the one or the other may be driven to the wall. 


LINCOLN’S REPLY 


My FELuow-CitizeNns ;— When a man hears himself 
somewhat misrepresented, it provokes him, — at least, 
I find it so with myself; but, when misrepresentation 
becomes very gross and palpable, it is more apt to amuse 
him. The first thing I see fit to notice is the fact that 
Judge Douglas alleges, after running through the his- 
tory of the old Democratic and the old Whig parties, 
that Judge Trumbull and myself made an arrangement 
in 1854 by which I was to have the place of General 
Shields in the United States Senate, and Judge Trum- 
bull was to have the place of Judge Douglas. Now all 
I have to say upon that subject is that I think no man 
— not even Judge Douglas — can prove it, because it 
is not true. I have no doubt he is “conscientious” in 
saying it. As to those resolutions that he took such a 
length of time to read, as being the platform of the 
Republican party in 1854, I say I never had anything 
to do with them; and I think Trumbull never had. 
Judge Douglas cannot show that either of us ever did 
have anything to do with them. I believe this is true 
about those resolutions. There was a call for a con- 
vention to form a Republican party at Springfield ; 
and I think that my friend Mr. Lovejoy, who is here 
upon this stand, had a hand init. I think this is true; 
and I think, if he will remember accurately, he will be 
able to recollect that he tried to get me into it, and I 


Addresses and Letters 55 


would not go in. I believe it is also true that I went 
away from Springfield, when the convention was in 
session, to attend court in Tazewell County. It is true 
they did place my name, though without authority, upon 
the committee, and afterward wrote me to attend the 
meeting of the committee ; but I refused to do so, and I 
never had anything to do with that organization. This is 
the plain truth about all that matter of the resolutions.! 

Now, about this story that Judge Douglas tells of 
Trumbull bargaining to sell out the old Democratic 
party, and Lincoln agreeing to sell out the Old Whig 
party, I have the means of knowing about that: Judge 
Douglas cannot have; and I know there is no substance 
to it whatever. Yet I have no doubt he is ‘ conscien- 
tious”’ about it. I know that, after Mr. Lovejoy got 
into the legislature that winter, he complained of me 
that I had told all the Old Whigs of his district that the 
Old Whig party was good enough for them, and some 
of them voted against him because I told them so. 
Now I have no means of totally disproving such charges 
as this which the judge makes. A man cannot prove a 
negative; but he has a right to claim that, when a 
man makes an affirmative charge, he must offer some 
proof to show the truth of what he says. I certainly 
cannot introduce testimony to show the negative about 
things; but I have a right to claim that, if a man says 
he knows a thing, then he must show how he knows it. 
I always have a right to claim this, and it is not satis- 
factory to me that he may be “conscientious’”’ on the 
subject. 


1Tf any corroboration were needed, Lincoln’s letters at the time 
would supply it, 


56 Abraham Lincoln 


Now, gentlemen, I hate to waste my time on such 
things, but in regard to that general Abolition tilt that 
Judge Douglas makes when he says that I was engaged 
at that time in selling out and Abolitionizing the Old 
Whig party, I hope you will permit me to read a part of 
a printed speech that I made then at Peoria, which will 
show altogether a different view of the position I took 
in that contest of 1854. [Voice: ‘Put on your specs.’’] 
Yes, sir, | am obliged to do so. I am no longer a young 
man. 


This is the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. The fore- 
going history may not be precisely accurate in every partic- 
ular; but Iam sure it is sufficiently so for all the uses I shall 
attempt to make of it, and in it we have before us the chief 
materials enabling us to correctly judge whether the repeal of 
the Missouri Compromise is right or wrong. 

I think, and shall try to show, that it is wrong, — wrong in 
its direct effect, — letting slavery into Kansas and Nebraska, 
and wrong in its prospective principle, — allowing it to spread 
to every other part of the wide world where man can be 
found inclined to take it. 

This declared indifference, but, as I must think, covert 
real zeal for the spread of slavery, I cannot but hate. I hate 
it because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself. I 
hate it because it deprives our republican example of its just 
influence in the world; enables the enemies of free institu- 
tions, with plausibility, to taunt us as hypocrites; causes the 
real friends of freedom to doubt our sincerity ; and especially 
because it forces so many really good men amongst ourselves 
into an open war with the very fundamental principles of civil 
liberty, — criticising the Declaration of Independence, and in- 
sisting that there is no right principle of action but self-interest. 

Before proceeding, let me say I think I have no prejudice 
against the Southern people. They are just what we would 
be in their situation. If slavery did not now exist among 
them, they would not introduce it. If it did now exist among 


Addresses and Letters 57 


us, we should not instantly give it up. This I believe of the 
masses of North and South. Doubtless there are individuals 
on both sides who would not hold slaves under any circum- 
stances; and others who would gladly introduce slavery 
anew, if it were out of existence. We know that some South- 
ern men do free their slaves, go North, and become tip-top 
Abolitionists; while some Northern ones go South, and be- 
come most cruel slave-masters. 

When Southern people tell us they are no more responsible 
for the origin of slavery than we, I acknowledge the fact. 
When it is said that the institution exists, and that it is very 
difficult to get rid of it in any satisfactory way, I can under- 
stand and appreciate the saying. I surely will not blame them 
for not doing what I should not know how to do myself. If 
all earthly power were given me, I should not know what to 
do as to the existing institution. My first impulse would 
be to free all the slaves, and send them to Liberia, — to their 
own native land. But a moment’s reflection would convince 
me that, whatever of high hope (as I think there is) there may 
be in this in the long run, its sudden execution is impossible. 
If they were all landed there in a day, they would all perish 
in the next ten days; and there are not surplus shipping and 
surplus money enough in the world to carry them there in 
many times ten days. What then? Free them all, and keep 
them among us as underlings? Is it quite certain that this 
betters their condition? I think I would not hold one in 
slavery, at any rate; yet the point is not clear enough to me 
to denounce people upon. What next? Free them, and 
make them politically and socially our equals? My own 
feelings will not admit of this; and, if mine would, we well 
know that those of the great mass of white people will not. 
Whether this feeling accords with justice and sound judg- 
ment is not the sole question, if, indeed, it is any part of it. 
A universal feeling, whether well or ill founded, cannot be 
safely disregarded. We cannot make them equals. It does 
seem to me that systems of gradual emancipation might be 
adopted; but, for their tardiness in this, I will not undertake 
to judge our brethren of the South. 


58 Abraham Lincoln 


When they remind us of their constitutional rights,! I ae- 
knowledge them, not grudgingly, but fully and fairly; and 
I would give them any legislation for the reclaiming of their 
fugitives which should not, in its stringency, be more likely 
to carry a free man into slavery than our ordinary criminal 
laws are to hang an innocent one. 

But all this, to my judgment, furnishes no more excuses for 
permitting slavery to go into our own free territory than it 
would for reviving the African slave trade by law. The law 
which forbids the bringing of slaves from Africa, and that 
which has so long forbidden the taking of them to Nebraska, 
ean hardly be distinguished in any moral principle; and the 
repeal of the former could find quite as plausible excuses as 
that of the latter. 


I have reason to know that Judge Douglas knows 
that I said this. I think he has the answer here to one 
of the questions he put to me. I do not mean to allow 
him to catechize me unless he pays back for it in kind. 
I will not answer questions one after another, unless he 
reciprocates; but as he has made this inquiry, and I 
have answered it before, he has got it without my 
getting anything in return. He has got my answer 
on the Fugitive-Slave law.’ 

Now, gentlemen, I don’t want to read at any great 
length; but this is the true complexion of all I have 
ever said in regard to the institution of slavery and the 
black race. This is the whole of it; and anything that 
argues me into his idea of perfect social and political 


1The Constitution reads: ‘‘No person held to service or labor 
in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, 
in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from 
such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party 
to whom such service or labor may be due.’’ — Article IV, Section 2. 

2 Lincoln himself had acted as attorney for a slave-owner in a case 
to recover slaves. See Stephenson, p. 439. 


Addresses and Letters 59 


equality with the negro is but a specious and fantastic 
arrangement of words, by which a man can prove a 
horse-chestnut to be a chestnut horse. I will say here, 
while upon this subject, that I have no purpose, either 
directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution 
of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I 
have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination 
to do so. I have no purpose to introduce political and 
social equality between the white and the black races. 
There is a physical difference between the two, which, in 
my judgment, will probably forever forbid their living 
together upon the footing of perfect equality ; and, in- 
asmuch as it becomes a necessity that there must be a 
difference, I, as well as Judge Douglas, am in favor of 
the race to which I belong having the superior position. 
I have never said anything to the contrary, but I hold 
that, notwithstanding all this, there is no reason in the 
world why the negro is not entitled to all the natural 
rights enumerated in the Declaration of Independence, 
— the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happi- 
ness. I hold that he is as much entitled to these as the 
white man. I agree with Judge Douglas he is not my 
equal in many respects, — certainly not in color, per- 
haps not in moral or intellectual endowment. But in 
the right to eat the bread, without the leave of anybody 
else, which his own hand earns, he is my equal and the 
equal of Judge Douglas, and the equal of every living 
man. 

Now I pass on to consider one or two more of these 
little follies. The judge is wofully at fault about his 
early friend Lincoln being a ‘‘grocery-keeper.” I 
don’t think that it would be a great sin if I had been; 


60 Abraham Lincoln 


but he is mistaken. Lincoln never kept a grocery 
anywhere in the world. It is true that Lincoln did 
work the latter part of one winter in a little still-house 
up at the head of a hollow. And so I think my friend, 
the judge, is equally at fault when he charges me at 
the time when I was in Congress of having opposed 
our soldiers who were fighting in the Mexican War. 
The judge did not make his charge very distinctly , 
but I tell you what he can prove, by referring to the 
record. You remember I was an Old Whig; and, 
whenever the Democratic Party tried to get me to vote 
that the war had been righteously begun by the Presi- 
dent, I would not do it. But, whenever they asked 
for any money or land-warrants or anything to pay 
the soldiers there, during all that time, I gave the same 
vote that Judge Douglas did. You can think as you 
please as to whether that was consistent. Such is the 
truth; and the judge has the right to make all he can 
out of it. But when he, by a general charge, conveys 
the idea that I withheld supplies from the soldiers who 
were fighting in the Mexican War, or did anything else 
to hinder the soldiers, he is, to say the least, grossly 
and altogether mistaken, as a consultation of the 
records: will prove to him. 

As I have not used up so much of my time as I had 
supposed, I will dwell a little longer upon one or two of 
these minor topics upon which the judge has spoken. 
He has read from my speech in Springfield in which I 
say that ‘‘a house divided against itself cannot stand.” 
Does the judge say it can stand? I don’t know whether 
he does or not. The judge does not seem to be attend- 
ing to me just now, but I would like to know if it is his 


Addresses and Letters 61 


opinion that a house divided against itself can stand. 
If he does, then there is a question of veracity, not 
between him and me, but between the judge and an 
authority of a somewhat higher character.! 

Now, my friends, I ask your-attention to this matter 
for the purpose of saying something seriously. I know 
that the judge may readily enough agree with me that 
the maxim which was put forth by the Saviour is true, 
but he may allege that I misapply it; and the judge 
has a right to urge that in my application I do misapply 
it, and then I have a right to show that I do not mis- 
apply it. When he undertakes to say that because I 
think this nation, so far as the question of slavery is 
concerned, will all become one thing or all the other, 
I am in favor of bringing about a dead uniformity in 
the various States in all their institutions, he argues 
erroneously. The great variety of the local institu- 
tions in the States, springing from differences in the 
soil, differences in the face of the country, and in the 
climate, are bonds of union. They do not make ‘a 
house divided against itself,’ but they make a house 
united. If they produce in one section of the country 
what is called for by the wants of another section, and 
this other section can supply the wants of the first, 
they are not matters of discord, but bonds of union, — 
true bonds of union. But can this question of slavery 
be considered as among these varieties in the institu- 
tions of the country? I leave it to you to say whether, 
in the history of our government, this institution of 
slavery has not always failed to be a bond of union, 


1The New Testament. See Matthew xii, 22-30. 


62 Abraham Lincoln 


and, on the contrary, been an apple of discord and an 
element of division in the house. I ask you to consider 
whether, so long as the moral constitution of men’s 
minds shall continue to be the same, after this genera- 
tion and assemblage shall sink into the grave, and an- 
other race shall arise with the same moral and intel- 
lectual development we have, — whether, if that in- | 
stitution is standing in the same irritating position in 
which it now is, it will not continue an element of 
division. 
If so, then I have a right to say that, in regard t 

this question, the Union is a house divided against it- 
self ; and when the judge reminds me that I have often 
said to him that the institution of slavery has existed 
for eighty years in some States, and yet it does not ex- 
ist in some others, I agree to the fact, and I account for 
it by looking at the position in which our fathers orig- 
inally placed it, —- restricting it from the new Terri- 
tories where it had not gone, and legislating to cut off 
its source by the abrogation: of the slave trade, thus 
putting the seal of legislation against its spread.! The 
public mind did rest in the belief that it was in the 
course of ultimate extinction. But lately, I think, — 
and in this I charge nothing on the judge’s motives, — 
lately, I think that he, and those acting with him, have 
placed that institution on a new basis, which looks to 
the perpetuity and nationalization of slavery. And, 
while it is placed upon this new basis, I say, and I have 
said, that I believe we shall not have peace upon the 
question until the opponents of slavery arrest the fur- 


1 See Cooper Union Address. 


Addresses and Letters 63 


ther spread of it, and place it where the public mind 
shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate 
extinction; or, on the other hand, that its advocates 
will push it forward until it shall become alike lawful 
in all the States, old as well as new, North as well as 
South.1 Now I believe, if we could arrest the spread, 
and place it where Washington and Jefferson and Madi- 
son placed it, it would be in the course of ultimate ex- 
tinction, and the public mind would, as for eighty years 
past, believe that it was in the course of ultimate ex- 
tinction. The crisis would be past, and the institu- 
tion might be let alone for a hundred years — if it 
should live so long — in the States where it exists, yet 
it would be going out of existence in the way best for 
both the black and the white races. [A voice: ‘‘Then 
do you repudiate popular sovereignty?”’| Well, then, 
let us talk about popular sovereignty! What is popular 
sovereignty? Is it the right of the people to have 
slavery or not have it, as they see fit, in the Territories? 
I will state — and I have an able man to watch me — 
my understanding is that popular sovereignty, as now 
applied to the question of slavery, does allow the people 
of a Territory to have slavery if they want to, but does 
not allow them not to have it if they do not want it. 
I do not mean that, if this vast concourse of people 
were in a Territory of the United States, any one of 
them would be obliged to have a slave if he did not want 
one; but I do say that, as I understand the Dred Scott 
decision, if any one man wants slaves, all the rest have 
no way of keeping that one man from holding them. 


1 See speech at Republican Convention, Springfield. 


64 Abraham Lincoln 


When I made my speech at Springfield,! of which 
the judge complains, and from which he quotes, I really 
was not thinking of the things which he ascribes to me 
at all. I had no thought in the world that I was doing 
anything to bring about a war between the free and 
slave States. I had no thought in the world that I was 
doing anything to bring about a political and social 
equality of the black and white races. It never oc- 
curred to me that I was doing anything or favoring 
anything to reduce to a dead uniformity all the local 
institutions of the various States. But I must say, in 
all fairness to him, if he thinks I am doing something 
which leads to these bad results, it is none the better 
that I did not mean it. It is just as fatal to the coun- 
try, if I have any influence in producing it, whether I 
intend it or not. But can it be true that placing this 
institution upon the original basis — the basis upon 
which our fathers placed it — can have any tendency 
to set the Northern and the Southern States at war 
with one another, or that it can have any tendency to 
make the people of Vermont raise sugar-cane because 
they raise it in Louisiana, or that it can compel the 
people of Illinois to cut pine logs on the Grand prairie, 
where they will not grow, because they cut pine logs in 
Maine, where they do grow? ‘The judge says this is a 
new principle started in regard to this question. Does 
the judge claim that he is working on the plan of the 
founders of the government? I think he says in some 
of his speeches — indeed, I have one here now — that 
he saw evidence of a policy to allow slavery to be south 


1 Republican Convention Speech, 


Addresses and Letters 65 


of a certain line, while north of it it should be excluded ; 
and he saw an indisposition on the part of the country 
to stand upon that policy, and therefore he set about 
studying the subject upon original principles, and upon 
original principles he got up the Nebraska bill! I am 
fighting it upon these ‘original principles,’’ — fighting 
it in the Jeffersonian, Washingtonian, and Madisonian 
fashion.! 

Now, my friends, I wish you to attend for a little 
while to one or two other things in that Springfield 
speech. My main object was to show, so far as my 
humble ability was capable of showing to the people 
of this country, what I believed was the truth, — that 
there was a tendency, if not a conspiracy, among those 
who have engineered this slavery question for the last 
four or five years, to make slavery perpetual and uni- 
versal in this nation. Having made that speech prin- 
cipally for that object, after arranging the evidences 
that I thought tended to prove my proposition, I con- 
cluded with this bit of comment : — 

We cannot absolutely know that these exact adaptations 
are the result of pre-concert; but, when we see a lot of framed 
timbers, different portions of which we know have been 
gotten out at different times and places, and by different 
workmen, — Stephen, Franklin, Roger, and James,” for in- 
stance, — and when we see these timbers joined together, 
and see they exactly make the frame of a house or a mill, all 
the tenons and mortises exactly fitting, and all the lengths 
and proportions of the different pieces exactly adapted to 


1 See Cooper Union Address. 

2 Stephen Douglas; Franklin Pierce, President 1853-1857 ; Roger 
Taney, Chief Justice and author of the Dred Scott decision; James 
Buchanan, President 1857-1861. 


66 Abraham Lincoln 


their respective places, and not a piece too many or too few, 
—not omitting even the scaffolding, — or if a single piece 
be lacking, we see the place in the frame exactly fitted and 
prepared to yet bring such piece in, —in such a case we feel 
it impossible not to believe that Stephen and Franklin, and 
Roger and James, all understood one another from the be- 
ginning, and all worked upon a common plan or draft drawn 
before the first blow was struck. 

When my friend, Judge Douglas, came to Chicago on 
the 9th of July, this speech having been delivered on 
the 16th of June, he made an harangue there in which 
he took hold of this speech of mine, showing that he had 
carefully read it; and, while he paid no attention to 
this matter at all, but complimented me as being a 
“kind, amiable, and intelligent gentleman,’ notwith- 
standing I had said this, he goes on and deduces, or 
draws out, from my speech this tendency of mine to 
set the States at war with one another, to make all the 
institutions uniform, and set the niggers and white 
people to marry together. Then, as the judge had 
complimented me with these pleasant titles (I must 
confess to my weakness), I was a little “taken”’; for 
it came from a great man. I was not very much ac- 
customed to flattery, and it came the sweeter to me. 
I was rather like the Hoosier with the gingerbread, 
when he said he reckoned he loved it better than any 
other man, and got less of it. As the judge had so 
flattered me, I could not make up my mind that he 
meant to deal unfairly with me. So I went to work to 
show him that he misunderstood the whole scope of 
my speech, and that I really never intended to set the 
people at war with one another. As an illustration, 
the next time I met him, which was at Springfield, I 


Addresses and Letters 67 


used this expression, that I claimed no right under the 
Constitution, nor had I any inclination, to enter into 
the slave States and interfere with the institutions of 
slavery. He says upon that, Lincoln will not enter 
into the slave States, but will go to the banks of the 
Ohio, on this side, and shoot over! He runs on, step 
by step, in the horse-chestnut style of argument, until 
- in the Springfield speech he says, ‘‘ Unless he shall be 
successful in firing his batteries until he shall have ex- 
tinguished slavery in all the States, the Union shall be 
dissolved.’”’ Now I don’t think that was exactly the 
way to treat a “kind, amiable, intelligent gentleman.”’ 
I know, if I had asked the judge to show when or where 
it was I had said that, if I didn’t succeed in firing into 
the slave States until slavery should be extinguished, 
the Union should be dissolved, he could not have shown — 
it. I understand what he would do. He would say, 
“T don’t mean to quote from you, but this was the 
result of what you say.” But I have the right to ask, 
and I do ask now, Did you not put it in such a form 
that an ordinary reader or listener would take it as an 
expression from me? 

In a speech at Springfield, on the night of the 17th, 
I thought I might as well attend to my business a little ; 
and I recalled his attention as well as I could to this 
charge of conspiracy to nationalize slavery. I called 
his attention to the fact that he had acknowledged in 
my hearing twice that he had carefully read the speech ; 
and, in the language of the lawyers, as he had twice 
read the speech, and still had put in no plea or answer, 
I took a default on him. I insisted that I had a right 
then to renew that charge of conspiracy. Ten days 


68 Abraham Lincoln 


afterward I met the judge at Clinton, — that is to say, 
I was on the ground, but not in the discussion, — and 
heard him make a speech. Then he comes in with his 
plea to this charge, for the first time ; and his plea when 
put in, as well as I can recollect it, amounted to this: 
that he never had any talk with Judge Taney or the 
President of the United States with regard to the Dred 
Scott decision before it was made; I (Lincoln) ought to 
know that the man who makes a charge without know- 
ing it to be true falsifies as much as he who knowingly 
_ tells a falsehood; and, lastly, that he would pronounce 
the whole thing a falsehood; but he would make no 
personal application of the charge of falsehood, not 
because of any regard for the ‘kind, amiable, intelli- 
gent gentleman,’ but because of his own personal self- 
respect! I have understood since then (but [turning 
~ to Judge Douglas] will not hold the judge to it if he is 
not willing) that he has broken through the ‘“‘self- 
respect,” and has got to saying the thing out. The 
judge nods to me that it is so. It is fortunate for me 
that I can keep as good-humored as I do, when the 
judge acknowledges that he has been trying to make a 
question of veracity with me. I know the judge is a 
great man, while I am only a small man; but I feel 
that I have got him. I demur to that plea. I waive 
all objections that it was not filed till after default was 
taken, and demur to it upon the merits. What if Judge 
Douglas never did talk with Chief Justice Taney and 
the President before the Dred Scott decision was made : 
does it follow that he could: not have had as perfect an 
understanding without talking as with it? I am not 
disposed to stand upon my legal advantage. I am 


Addresses and Letters 69 


disposed to take his denial as being like an answer in 
chancery, that he neither had any knowledge, informa- 
tion, nor belief in the existence of such aconspiracy. 
I am disposed to take his answer as being as broad as 
though he had put it in these words. And now, I ask, 
even if he had done so, have not I a right to prove it 
on him, and to offer the evidence of more than two wit- 
nesses, by whom to prove it; and, if the evidence 
proves the existence of the conspiracy, does his broad 
answer, denying all knowledge, information, or belief, 
disturb the fact? It can only show that he was used 
by conspirators, and was not a leader of them. 

Now in regard to his reminding me of the moral rule 
that persons who tell what they do not know to be true 
falsify as much as those who knowingly tell falsehoods. 
I remember the rule, and it must be borne in mind that 
in what I have read to you I do not say that I know 
such a conspiracy to exist. To that I reply, I believe 
it. If the judge says that I do not believe it, then he 
says what he does not know, and falls within his own 
rule that he who asserts a thing which he does not know 
to be true falsifies as much as he who knowingly tells a 
falsehood. I want to call your attention to a little dis- 
cussion on that branch of the case, and the evidence 
which brought my mind to the conclusion which I ex- 
pressed as my belief. If, in arraying that evidence, I 
had stated anything which was false or erroneous, it 
needed but that Judge Douglas should point it out, 
and I would have taken it back with all the kindness in 
the world. I do not deal in that way. If I have 
brought forward anything not a fact, if he will point it 
out, it will not even ruffle me to take it back. But, if 


70 Abraham Lincoln 


he will not point out anything erroneous in the evidence, 
is it not rather for him to show by a comparison of the 
evidence that I have reasoned falsely than to call the 
“kind, amiable, intelligent gentleman” a liar? If I 
have reasoned to a false conclusion, it is the vocation 
of an able debater to show by argument that I have 
wandered to an erroneous conclusion. I want to ask 
your attention to a portion of the Nebraska bill which 
Judge Douglas has quoted: “it being the true intent 
and meaning of this act not to legislate slavery into any 
Territory or State, nor to exclude it therefrom, but to 
leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and reg- 
ulate their domestic institutions in their own way, sub- 
ject only to the Constitution of the United States.”’ 
Thereupon Judge Douglas and others began to argue 
in favor of “popular sovereignty,’’ — the right of the 
people to have slaves if they wanted them, and to ex- 
clude slavery if they did not want them. ‘But,’ said, 
in substance, a senator from Ohio (Mr. Chase, I believe), 
“we more than suspect that you do not mean to allow 
the people to exclude slavery if they wish to; and, if 
you do mean it, accept an amendment which I propose: 
expressly authorizing the people to exclude slavery.’” 
I believe I have the amendment here before me, which 
was offered, and under which the people of the Terri-: 
tory, through their proper representatives, might, if 
they saw fit, prohibit the existence of slavery therein. 
And now I state it as a fact, to be taken back if there 
is any mistake about it, that Judge Douglas and those 
acting with him voted that amendment down. I now 
think that those men who voted it down had a real 
reason for doing so, “They know what that reason was. 


Addresses and Letters 71 


It looks to us, since we have seen the Dred Scott decision 
pronounced, holding that, ‘under the Constitution,” 
the people cannot exclude slavery, — I say it looks to 
outsiders, poor, simple, ‘‘amiable, intelligent gentle- 
men,’ as though the niche was left as a place to put 
that Dred Scott decision in, —a niche which would 
have been spoiled by adopting the amendment. And 
now I say again, if this was not the reason, it will avail 
the judge much more to calmly and good-humoredly 
point out to these people what that other reason was 
for voting the amendment down than swelling himself 
up to vociferate that he may be provoked to call some- 
body a liar. 

Again, there is in that same quotation from the Ne- 
braska bill this clause: ‘it being the true intent and 
meaning of this bill not to legislate slavery into any 
Territory or State.’”? I have always been puzzled to 
know what business the word ‘‘State’’ had in that con- 
nection. Judge Douglas knows. He put it there. He 
knows what he put it there for. We outsiders cannot 
say what he put it there for. The law they were pass- 
ing was not about States, and was not making provi- 
sion for States.. What was it placed there for? After 
seeing the Dred Scott decision, which holds that the 
people cannot exclude slavery from a Territory, if an- 
other Dred Scott decision shall come, holding that they 
cannot exclude it from a State, we shall discover that, 
when the word was originally put there, it was in view 
of something which was to come in due time, we shall 
see that it was the other half of something. I now 
say again, if there is any different reason for putting 
it there, Judge Douglas, in a good-humored way, 


72 Abraham Lincoln 


without calling anybody a liar, can tell what the 
reason was. 

When the judge spoke at Clinton, he came very near 
making a charge of falsehood against me. He used, as 
I found it printed in a newspaper, which, I remember, 
was very nearly like the real speech, the following 
language : — 


I did not answer the charge [of conspiracy] before for the 
reason that I did not suppose there was a man in America 
with a heart so corrupt as to believe such a charge could be 
true. I have too much respect for Mr. ee to suppose 
he is serious in making the charge. 


I confess this is rather a curious view, that out of 
respect for me he should consider I was making what 
I deemed rather a grave charge in fun. I confess it 
strikes me rather strangely. But I let it pass. As the 
judge did not for a moment believe that there was a 
man in America whose heart was so ‘‘corrupt”’ as to 
make such a charge, and as he places me among the 
“men of America’? who have hearts base enough to 
make such a charge, I hope he will excuse me if I hunt 
out another charge very like this; and, if it should 
turn out that in hunting I should find that other, and 
it should turn out to be Judge Douglas himself who 
made it, I hope he will reconsider this question of the 
deep corruption of heart he has thought fit to ascribe 
tome. In Judge Douglas’s speech of March 22, 1858, 
which I hold in my hand, he says : — 


In this connection there is another topic to which I desire 
to allude. I seldom refer to the course of newspapers or no- 
tice the articles which they publish in regard to myself; but 


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AF oP Ae bios 


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Addresses and Letters 73 


the course of the Washington Union has been so extraordi- 
nary for the last two or three months that I think it well enough 
to make some allusion to it. It has read me out of the Demo- 
cratic party every other day, at least for two or three months, 
and keeps reading me out, and, as if it had not succeeded, 
still continues to read me out, using such terms as ‘‘traitor,”’ 
‘‘renegade,’’ “‘deserter,’’ and other kind and polite epithets 
of that nature. Sir, I have no vindication to make of my 
Democracy against the Washington Union, or any other 
newspaper. I am willing to allow my history and actions 
for the last twenty years to speak for themselves as to my 
political principles and my fidelity to political obligations. 
The Washington Union has a personal grievance. When 
the editor was nominated for public printer, I declined to 
vote for him, and stated that at some time I might give my 
reasons for doing so. Since I declined to give that vote, this 
scurrilous abuse, these vindictive and constant attacks, have 
been repeated almost daily on me. Will my friend from 
Michigan read the article to which I allude? 


This is a part of the speech. You must excuse me 
from reading the entire article of the Washington 
Union, as Mr. Stuart read it for Mr. Douglas. ‘The 
judge goes on and sums up, as I think, correctly : — 


Mr. President, you here find several distinct propositions 
advanced boldly by the Washington Union editorially, and 
apparently authoritatively; and any man who questions 
any of them is denounced as an Abolitionist, a Free Soiler, a 
fanatic. The propositions are, first, that the primary ob- 
ject of all government at its original institution is the pro- 
tection of person and property, second, that the Constitu- 
tion of the United States declares that the citizens of each 
State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of 
citizens in the several States; and that, therefore, thirdly, 


1 This newspaper was the official organ of President Buchanan, with 
whom Douglas violently disagreed over the Lecompton Constitution. 


74 Abraham Lincoln 


all State laws, whether organic or otherwise, which prohibit 
the citizens of one State from settling in another with their 
slave property, and especially declaring it forfeited, are di- 
rect violations of the original intention of the government 
and Constitution of the United States, and, fourth, that the 
emancipation of the slaves of the Northern States was a gross 
outrage on the rights of property, inasmuch as it was involun- 
tarily done on the part of the owner. 

Remember that this article was published in the Union 
on the 17th of November, and on the 18th appeared the first 
article giving the adhesion of the Union to the Lecompton 
Constitution. It was in these words : — 

‘““KANSAS AND HER ConstTiITUTION. The vexed question 
is settled. The problem is solved. The dead point of danger 
is passed. All serious trouble to Kansas affairs is over and 
gone.” 

And a column nearly of the same sort. Then, when you 
come to look into the Lecompton Constitution, you find the 
same doctrine incorporated in it which was put forth edi- 
torially in the Union. What is it? 

‘“ARTICLE 7, Section 1. The right of property is before 
and higher than any constitutional sanction; and the right 
of the owner of a slave to such slave and its increase is the 
same and as inviolable as the right of the owner of any prop- 
erty whatever.”’ 

Then in the schedule is a provision that the constitution — 
may be amended after 1864 by a two-thirds vote. 

‘‘But no alteration shall be made to affect the right of 
property in the ownership of slaves.’’ 

It will be seen by these clauses in the Lecompton Constitu- 
tion that they are identical in spirit with the authoritative 
article in the Washington Union of the day previous to its 
indorsement of this constitution. 


I pass over some portions of the speech, and I hope 
that any one who feels interested in this matter will 
read the entire section of the speech, and see whether 
I do the judge an injustice. He proceeds: 


Addresses and Letters 7s 


When I saw that article in the Union of the 17th of No- 
vember, followed by the glorification of the Lecompton Con- 
stitution on the 18th of November, and this clause in the con- 
stitution asserting the doctrine that a State has no right to 
prohibit slavery within its limits, I saw that there was a fatal 
blow being struck at the sovereignty of the States of this 
Union. 

I stop the quotation there, again requesting that 
it may all be read. I have read all of the portion I 
desire to comment upon. What is this charge that 
the judge thinks I must have a very corrupt heart 
to make’? It was a purpose on the part of certain high 
functionaries to make it impossible for the people of 
one State to prohibit the people of any other State 
from entering it with their ‘‘ property” so called, and 
making it a slave State. In other words, it was a 
charge implying a design to make the institution of 
slavery national. And now I ask your attention to 
what Judge Douglas has himself done here. I know 
that he made that part of the speech as a reason why 
he had refused to vote for a certain man for public 
printer; but, when we get at it, the charge itself is the 
very one I made against him, that he thinks I am so 
corrupt for uttering. Now whom does he make that 
charge against? Does he make it against that news- 
paper editor merely? No: he says it is identical in 
spirit with the Lecompton Constitution, and so the 
framers of that constitution are brought in with the 
editor of the newspaper in that ‘fatal blow being 
struck.”” He did not call it a ‘‘conspiracy.” In his 
language it is a “fatal blow being struck.’’ And, if 
the words carry the meaning better when changed from 
a “conspiracy” into a “fatal blow being struck,” I 


76 Abraham Lincoln 


will change my expression, and call it “fatal blow being 
struck.”? We see the charge made not merely against 
the editor of the Union, but all the framers of the Le- 
compton Constitution; and not only so, but the article 
was an authoritative article. By whose authority? Is 
there any question but that he means it was by the 
authority of the President and his cabinet, — the ad- 
ministration? -Is there any sort of question but that 
he means to make that charge? Then there are the 
editors of the Union, the framers of the Lecompton 
Constitution, the President of the United States and 
his cabinet, and all the supporters of the Lecompton 
Constitution, in Congress and out of Congress, who are 
all involved in this ‘‘fatal blow being struck.” I 
commend to Judge Douglas’s consideration the ques- 
tion of how corrupt a man’s heart must be to make 
such a charge! 

Now, my friends, I have but one branch of the 
subject, in the little time I have left, to which to call 
your attention; and, as I shall come to a close at the 
end of that branch, it is probable that I shall not occupy 
quite all the time allotted to me. Although on these 
questions I would like to talk twice as long as I have, I 
could not enter upon another head and discuss it 
properly without running over my time. I ask the > 
attention of the people here assembled and elsewhere 
to the course that Judge Douglas is pursuing every 
day as bearing upon this question of making slavery 
national. Not going back to the records, but taking 
the speeches he makes, the speeches he made yester- 
day and day before, and makes constantly all over the 
country, —I ask your attention to them, In the 


Addresses and Letters 77 


first place, what is necessary to make the institution 
national? Not war. There is no danger that the 
people of Kentucky will shoulder their muskets, and, 
with a young nigger stuck on every bayonet, march 
into Illinois and force them upon us. There is no dan- 
ger of our going over there and making war upon them. 
Then what is necessary for the nationalization of slav- 
ery? It is simply the next Dred Scott decision. It 
is merely for the Supreme Court to decide that no State 
under the Constitution can exclude it, just as they 
have already decided that under the Constitution 
neither Congress nor the Territorial legislature can 
do it. When that is decided and acquiesced in, the 
whole thing is done. This being true, and this being 
the way, as I think, that slavery is to be made national, 
let us consider what Judge Douglas is doing every day 
to that end. In the first place, let us see what influence 
he is exerting on public sentiment. In this and like 
communities, public sentiment is everything. With 
public sentiment, nothing can fail: without it, nothing 
can sueceed. Consequently, he who moulds public 
sentiment goes deeper than he who enacts statutes 
or pronounces decisions. He makes statutes and de- 
cisions possible or impossible to be executed. This 
must be borne in mind, as also the additional fact 
that Judge Douglas is a man of vast influence, so great 
that it is enough for many men to profess to believe 
anything when they once find out that Judge Douglas 
professes to believe it. Consider also the attitude he 
occupies at the head of a large party, — a party, which 
he claims has a majority of all the voters in the country. 

This man sticks to a decision which forbids the 


78 Abraham Lincoln 


people of a Territory to exclude slavery, and he does 
so not because he says it is right in itself, — he does 
not give any opinion on that, — but because it has 
been decided by the court; and, being decided by the 
court, he is, and you are, bound to take it in your po- 
litical action as law, — not that he judges at all of its 
merits, but because a decision of the court is to him a 
“Thus saith the Lord.” He places it on that ground 
alone, and you will bear in mind that thus committing 
himself unreservedly to this decision commits him to 
the next one just as firmly as to this. He did not 
commit himself on account of: the merit or demerit 
of the decision, but it is a “‘ Thus saith the Lord.’”’? The 
next decision, as much as this, will be a ‘‘Thus saith 
the Lord.’”’? There is nothing that can divert or turn 
him away from this decision. It is nothing that I 
point out to him that his great prototype, General 
Jackson,! did not believe in the binding force of de- 
cisions. It is nothing to him that Jefferson! did not 
so believe. I have said that I have often heard him 
approve of Jackson’s course in disregarding the decision 
of the Supreme Court pronouncing a national bank 
constitutional. He says I did not hear him say so. 
He denies the accuracy of my recollection. I say he 
ought to know better than I; but I will make no ques- 
tion about this thing, though it still seems to me that 
I heard him say it twenty times. I will tell him, 
though, that he now claims to stand on the Cincinnati 
platform, which affirms that Congress cannot charter a 
national bank, in the teeth of that old standing decision 


1 Both Democrats. 


Addresses and Letters 79 


that Congress can charter a bank. And I remind 
him of another piece of history on the question of 
respect for judicial decisions, and it is a piece of Illinois 
history, belonging to a time when a large party to 
which Judge Douglas belonged were displeased with 
a decision of the Supreme Court of Illinois, because 
they had decided that a governor could not remove a 
secretary of state. You will find the whole story in 
Ford’s History of Illinois, and I know that Judge 
Douglas will not deny that he was then in favor of 
oversloughing that decision by the mode of adding 
five new judges, so as to vote down the four old ones. 
Not only so, but it ended in the judge’s sitting down on 
the very bench as one of the five new judges to break 
down the four old ones. It was in this way precisely 
that he got his title of judge. Now, when the judge tells 
me that men appointed conditionally to sit as members 
of a court will have to be catechised beforehand upon 
some subject, I say, “You know, judge: you have 
tried it.’”’ When he says a court of this kind will lose 
the confidence of all men, will be prostituted and dis- 
graced by such a proceeding, I say, ‘‘ You know best, 
judge: you have been through the mill.” 

But I cannot shake Judge Douglas’s teeth loose 
from the Dred Scott decision. Like some obstinate 
animal (I mean no disrespect) that will hang on when 
he has once got his teeth fixed, — you may cut off a 
leg or you may tear away an arm, still he will not relax 
his hold. And so I may point out to the judge, and 
say that he is bespattered all over, from the beginning 
of his political life to the present time, with attacks 
upon judicial decisions, —I may cut off limb after 


80 Abraham Lincoln 


limb of his public record, and strive to wrench from 
him a single dictum of the court, yet I cannot divert 
him from it. He hangs to the last to the Dred Scott 
decision. These things show there is a purpose strong 
as death and eternity for which he adheres to this de- 
cision, and for which he will adhere to all other decisions 
of the same court.!. [A Hibernian: ‘‘ Give us something 
besides Drid Scott.”] Yes; no doubt you want to 
hear something that don’t hurt. Now, having spoken 
of the Dred Scott decision, one more word, and I am 
done. Henry Clay, my beau-ideal of a statesman, 
the man for whom I fought all my humble life, — Henry 
Clay once said of a class of men who would repress 
all tendencies to liberty and ultimate emancipation 
that they must, if they would do this, go back to the 
era of our independence, and muzzle the cannon which 
thunders its annual joyous return; they must blow 
out the moral lights around us; they must penetrate 
the human soul, and eradicate there the love of liberty ; 
and then, not till then, could they perpetuate slavery 
in this country! To my thinking, Judge Douglas is, 
by his example and vast influence, doing that very | 
thing in this community when he says that the negro 
has nothing in the Declaration of Independence. 
Henry Clay plainly understood the contrary. Judge 
Douglas is going back to the era of our Revolution, and 
to the extent of his ability muzzling the cannon which 
thunders its annual joyous return. When he invites 
any people, willing to have slavery, to establish it, he 
is blowing out the moral lights around us. When he 


_} Lincoln is determined to make the point that another Dred Scott 
decision was to be expected. 


Addresses and Letters SI 


says he “‘cares not whether slavery is voted down or 
voted up,’ — that it is a sacred right of self-govern- 
ment, — he is, in my judgment, penetrating the hu- 
man soul, and eradicating the light of reason and the 
love of liberty in this American people. And now I will 
only say that when, by all these means and appliances, 
Judge Douglas shall succeed in bringing public senti- 
ment to an exact accordance with his own views, — 
when these vast assemblages shall echo back all these 
sentiments, — when they shall come to repeat his views 
and to avow his principles, and to say all that he says 
on these mighty questions, — then it needs only the 
formality of the second Dred Scott decision, which he 
indorses in advance, to make slavery alike lawful in 
all the States, — old as well as new, North as well as 
South. 


The Real Issue 


In this ringing paragraph Lincoln seizes a question that 
Douglas wished to subordinate to ‘‘local police regulations”’ 
and places it so far above mere local concern that it becomes 
an issue of first importance to all mankind. 


[From the last Lincoln-Douglas Debate at Alton, Illinois, Oc- 
tober 15, 1858} 

That is the real issue. That is the issue that will 
continue in this country when these poor tongues of 
Judge Douglas and myself shall be silent. It is the 
eternal struggle between these two principles — right 
and wrong — throughout the world. They .are the 
two principles that have stood face to face from the 
beginning of time; and will ever continue to struggle. 
The one is the common right of humanity, and the other 


82 Abraham Lincoln 


the divine right of kings. It is the same principle in 
whatever shape it develops itself. It is the same 
spirit that says, ‘‘ You toil and work and earn bread, 
and I’ll eat it.” No matter in what shape it comes, 
whether from the mouth of a king who seeks to bestride 
the people of his own nation and live by the fruit of 
their labor, or from one race of men as an apology for 
enslaving another race, it is the same tyrannical prin- 
ciple. 


Letter to H. D. Sharpe 


The popular vote following the debates gave Lincoln’s 
party 126,000, and Douglas Democrats 122,000; but the 
legislature had a majority for Douglas and he was chosen 
senator. Lincoln, however, had the satisfaction of knowing 
that he was building for the future. 


Springfield, December 8, 1858 
H. D. Sharpe, Esq. 


Dear Str: Your very kind letter of November 9th 
was duly received. I do not know that you expected 
or desired an answer; but glancing over the contents 
of yours again, I am prompted to say that, while I 
desired the result of the late canvass to have been dif- 
ferent, I still regard it as an exceedingly small matter. 
I think we have fairly entered upon a durable struggle 
as to whether this nation is to ultimately become all 
slave or all free, and though I fall early in the contest, 
it is nothing if I shall have contributed, in the least 
degree, to the final rightful result. 

Respectfully yours, 
A. LINCOLN 


Addresses and Letters 83 


The Columbus Speech 


In a letter written afew months after the Douglas debates, 
Lincoln said, ‘“‘I do not think I am fit for the Presidency.”’ 
Nevertheless, when he heard, in the campaign of 1859, that 
Douglas was speaking in Ohio, he accepted an invitation to 
speak at Columbus and Cincinnati. The Columbus speech 
is important because it shows that his failure to win the 
senatorship had not at all discouraged Lincoln and that he 
looked forward to waging the struggle beyond his own state 
border. Furthermore, in it he makes clear one of the per- 
plexing phases of the slavery question, how much political 
and social privilege the negro was to have when slavery 
ceased; and he gives, in substance, the argument of his 
Cooper Union Address. 


[September 16, 1859] 

FELLOW-CITIZENS OF THE STATE OF OnIO: I cannot 
fail to remember that I appear for the first time before 
an audience in this now great state —an audience 
that is accustomed to hear such speakers as Corwin, 
and Chase,! and Wade, and many other renowned 
men; and remembering this, I feel that it will be well 
for you, as for me, that you should not raise your ex- 
pectations to that standard to which you would have 
been justified in raising them had one of these distin- 
guished men appeared before you. You would perhaps 
be only preparing a disappointment for yourselves, and, 
as a consequence of your disappointment, mortification 
to me. I hope, therefore, that you will commence 
with very moderate expectations; and, perhaps, if 


1 All three prominent in Ohio. Chase a U.S. Senator, afterwards 
became Lincoln’s Secretary of the Treasury; Wade, a member of the 
U. S. Senate, was a violent anti-South partisan. 


84 | Abraham Lincoln 


you will give me your attention, I shall be able to in- 
terest you to a moderate degree. 

Appearing here for the first time in my life, I have 
been somewhat embarrassed for a topic by way of in- 
troduction to my speech; but I have been relieved from 
that embarrassment by an introduction which the 
Ohio Statesman newspaper gave me this morning. In 
this newspaper I have read an article in which, among 
other statements, I find the following : 


“Tn debating with Senator Douglas during the mem- 
orable contest last fall, Mr. Lincoln declared in favor 
of negro suffrage, and attempted to defend that vile 
conception against the Little Giant.”’ 


I mention this now, at the opening of my remarks, 
for the purpose of making three comments upon it. 
The first I have already announced — it furnished me 
an introductory topic; the second is to show that the 
gentleman is mistaken; thirdly, to give him an oppor- 
tunity to correct it. 


There, my friends, you have briefly what I have, 
upon former occasions, said upon the subject to which 
this newspaper, to the extent of its ability, has drawn 
the public attention. In it you not only perceive, as a 
probability, that in that contest I did not at any time 
say I was in favor of negro suffrage; but the absolute 
proof that twice — once substantially and once ex- 
pressly —I declared against it. Having shown you 
this, there remains but a word of comment upon that 
newspaper article. It is this: that I presume the 
editor of that paper is an honest and truth-loving man, 


Addresses and Letters 85 


and that he will be greatly obliged to me for furnishing 
him thus early an opportunity to correct the misrepre- 
sentation he has made, before it has run so long that 
malicious people can call him a har. 

The giant himself! has been here recently. I have 
seen a brief report of his speech. If it were otherwise 
unpleasant to me to introduce the subject of the negro 
as a topic for discussion, I might be somewhat relieved 
by the fact that he dealt exclusively in that subject 
while he was here. I shall, therefore, without much 
hesitation or diffidence, enter upon this subject. 

The American people, on the first day of January, 
1854, found the African slave-trade prohibited by a law 
of Congress. Ina majority of the states of this Union, 
they found African slavery, or any other sort of slavery, 
prohibited by state constitutions. They also found a 
law existing, supposed to be valid, by which slavery 
was excluded from almost all the territory the United 
States then owned.? This was the condition of the 
country, with reference to the institution of slavery, 
on the first of January, 1854. A few days after that, a 
bill was introduced into Congress, which ran through 
its regular course in the two branches of the national 
legislature, and finally passed into a law in the month 
of May,*? by which the act of Congress prohibiting 
slavery from going into the territories of the United 
States was repealed. In connection with the law itself, 
and, in fact, in the terms of the law, the then existing 
prohibition was not only repealed, but there was a dec- 
laration of a purpose on the part of Congress never 


1 Douglas. 2'The Missouri Compromise. 
3 The Kansas-Nebraska bill. 


86 Abraham Lincoln 


thereafter to exercise any power that they might have, 
real or supposed, to prohibit the extension or spread 
of slavery. This was a very great change; for the law 
thus repealed was of more than thirty years’ standing. 
Following rapidly upon the heels of this action of 
Congress, a decision of the Supreme Court is made, 
by which it is declared that Congress, if it desires to 
prohibit the spread of slavery into the territories, has 
no constitutional power to do so.! Not only so, but 
that decision lays down principles, which, if pushed 
to their logical conclusion —I say pushed to their 
logical conclusion — would decide that the constitu- 
tions of free states, forbidding slavery, are themselves 
unconstitutional. Mark me, I do not say the judges 
said this, and let no man say I affirm the judges used 
these words; but I only say it is my opinion that what 
they did say, if pressed to its logical conclusion, will 
inevitably result thus.? 

Looking at these things, the Republican party, as I 
understand its principles and policy, believes that 
there is great danger of the institution of slavery being 
spread out and extended, until it is ultimately made 
alike lawful in all the states of this Union; so believing, 
to prevent that incidental and ultimate consummation 
is the original and chief purpose of the Republican 
organization. I say “chief purpose” of the Republican 
organization ; for it is certainly true that if the national 
house shall fall into the hands of the Republicans, 
they will have to attend to all the other matters of 
national housekeeping as well as this. The chief 


1 The Dred Scott Decision. 
2 The point of his Springfield Speech. 


Addresses and Letters 87 


and real purpose of the Republican party is eminently 
conservative. It proposes nothing save and except to 
restore this government to its original tone in regard 
to this element of slavery, and there to maintain it, 
looking for no further change in reference to it than that 
which the original framers of the government them- 
selves expected and looked forward to.! 

The chief danger to this purpose of the Republican 
party is not just now the revival of the African slave- 
trade, or the passage of a congressional slave-code, or 
the declaring of a second Dred Scott decision, making 
slavery lawful in all the states. These are not pressing 
us Just now. They are not quite ready yet. The au- 
thors of these measures know that we are too strong 
for them; but they will be upon us in due time, and we 
will be grappling with them hand to hand, if they are 
not now headed off. They are not now the chief 
danger to the purpose of the Republican organization ; 
but the most imminent danger that now threatens 
that purpose is that insidious Douglas popular sover- 
elgnty. This is the miner and sapper. While it does 
not propose to revive the African slave-trade, nor to 
pass a slave-code, nor to make a second Dred Scott 
decision, it is preparing us for the onslaught and charge 
of these ultimate enemies when they shall be ready to 
come on, and the word of command for them to ad- 
vance shall be given. I say this Douglas popular sov- 
ereignty —for there is a broad distinction, as I now 
understand it, between that article and a genuine popu- 
lar sovereignty. 


1 The topic of his Cooper Union Address. 


88 Abraham Lincoln 


I believe there is a genuine popular sovereignty. I 
think a definition of genuine popular sovereignty, in 
the abstract, would be about this: That each man 
shall do precisely as he pleases with himself, and with 
all those things which exclusively concern him. Ap- 
plied to government, this principle would be, that a 
general government shall do all those things which 
pertain to it, and all the local governments shall do 
precisely as they please in respect to those matters 
which exclusively concern them. I understand that 
this government of the United States, under which we 
live, is based upon this principle; and I am misunder- 
stood if it is supposed that I have any war to make 
upon that principle. 

Now, what is Judge Douglas’s popular sovereignty ? 
It is, as a principle, no other than that if one man chooses 
to make a slave of another man, neither that other 
man nor anybody else has a right to object. Applied 
in government, as he seeks to apply it, it is this: If, 
in a new territory into which a few people are beginning 
to enter for the purpose of making their homes, they 
choose to either exclude slavery from their limits or to 
establish it there, however one or the other may affect 
the persons to be enslaved, or the infinitely greater 
number of persons who are afterward to inhabit that 
territory, or the other members of the families of com- 
munities, of which they are but an incipient member, 
or the general head of the family of states as parent of 


all — however their action may affect one or the other. 


of these, there is no power or right to interfere. That 
is Douglas’s popular sovereignty applied. 
He has a good deal of trouble with popular sov- 


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Addresses and Letters 89 


ereignty. His explanations explanatory of explana- 
tions explained are interminable. The most lengthy 
and, as I suppose, the most maturely considered of his 
long series of explanations is his great essay in Harper’s 
Magazine! I will not attempt to enter on any very 
thorough investigation of his argument as there made 
and presented. I will nevertheless occupy a good por- 
tion of your time here in drawing your attention to 
certain points in it. 


There are two main objects, as I understand it, of 
this Harper’s Magazine essay. One was to show, if 
possible, that the men of our Revolutionary times were 
in favor of his popular sovereignty ; and the other was 
to show that the Dred Scott decision had not entirely 
squelched out this popular sovereignty. I do not 
propose, in regard to this argument drawn from the 
history of former times, to enter into a detailed exami- 
nation of the historical statements he has made. I 
have the impression that they are inaccurate in a 
great many instances ; sometimes in positive statement, 
but very much more inaccurate by the suppression of 
statements that really belong to the history. But I 
do not propose to affirm that this is so to any very 
great extent, or to enter into a very minute examination 
of his historical statement. I avoid doing so upon 
this principle — that if it were important for me to 
pass out of this lot in the least period of time possible, 
and I came to that fence and saw by a calculation of 


1 Harper’s of September, 1859. 


ele) Abraham Lincoln 


my own strength and agility that I could clear it at a 
bound, it would be folly for me to stop and consider 
whether I could or could not crawl through a crack. 
So I say of the whole history contained in his essay, 
where he endeavored to link the men of the Revolu- 
tion to popular sovereignty. It only requires an effort 
to leap out of it —a single bound to be entirely suc- 
cessful. If you read it over, you will find that he 
quotes here and there from documents of the Revolu- 
tionary times, tending to show that the people of the 
colonies were desirous of regulating their own concerns 
in their own way; that the British Government should 
not interfere; that at one time they struggled with 
the British Government to be permitted to exclude the 
African slave-trade; if not directly, to be permitted 
to exclude it indirectly by taxation sufficient to dis- 
courage and destroy it. From these and many things 
of this sort, Judge Douglas argues that they were in 
favor of the people of our own territories excluding 
slavery if they wanted to, or planting it there if they 
wanted to, doing just as they pleased from the time they 
settled upon the territory. Now, however his history 
may apply, and whatever of his argument there may be 
that is sound and accurate or unsound and inaccurate, 
if we can find out what these men did themselves do 
upon this very question of slavery in the territories, 
does it not end the whole thing? If, after all this labor 
and effort to show that the men of the Revolution were 
in favor of his popular sovereignty and his mode of 
dealing with slavery in the territories, we can show 
that these very men took hold of that subject, and 
dealt with it, we can see for ourselves how they dealt 


Addresses and Letters gI 


with it. It is not a matter of argument or inference, 
but we know what they thought about it. 

It iS precisely upon that part of the history of the 
country that one important omission is made by Judge 
Douglas. He selects parts of the history of the United 
States upon the subject of slavery, and treats it as the 
whole, omitting from his historical sketch the legis- 
lation of Congress in regard to the admission of Mis- 
sourl, by which the Missouri Compromise was es- 
tablished, and slavery excluded from a country half as 
large as the present United States. All this is left out 
of his history, and in no wise alluded to by him, so far 
as I can remember, save once, when he makes a re- 
mark, that upon his principle the Supreme Court was 
authorized to pronounce a decision that the act called 
the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional. All 
that history has been left out. But this part of the 
history of the country was not made by the men of 
the Revolution. 

There was another part of our political history made 
by the very men who were the actors in the Revolution, 
which has taken the name of the Ordinance of ’87. 
Let me bring that history to your attention. In 1784, 
I believe, this same Mr. Jefferson drew up an ordinance 
for the government of the country upon which we now 
-stand; or rather a frame or draft of an ordinance for 
the government of this country, here in Ohio, our 
neighbors in Indiana, us who live in IIlinois, and our 
neighbors in Wisconsin and Michigan. In that ordi- 
nance, drawn up not only for the government of that 
territory, but for the territories south of the Ohio 
River, Mr. Jefferson expressly provided for the prohi- 


92 Abraham Lincoln 


bition of slavery. Judge Douglas says, and perhaps 
he is right, that that provision was lost from that or- 
dinance. I believe that is true. When the vote was 
taken upon it, a majority of all present in the Congress 
of the Confederation voted for it; but there were so 
many absentees that those voting for it did not make 
the clear majority necessary, and it was lost. But 
three years after that the Congress of the Confederation 
were together again, and they adopted a new ordinance 
for the government of this Northwest Territory, not 
contemplating territory south of the river, for the states 
owning that territory had hitherto refrained from giving 
it to the General Government; hence they made the 
ordinance to apply only to what the government owned. 
In that, the provision excluding slavery was inserted 
and passed unanimously, or at any rate it passed and 
became a part of the law of the land. Under that 
ordinance we live. First, here, in Ohio, you were a 
territory, then an enabling act was passed, authorizing 
you to form a constitution and state government, 
provided it was Republican,! and not in conflict with 
the ordinance of ’87. When you framed your constitu- 
tion and presented it for admission, I think you will 
find the legislation upon the subject will show that, 
‘““whereas you had formed a constitution that was Re- 
publican, and not in conflict with the ordinance of ’87,’’* 
therefore you were admitted upon equal footing with the 
original states. The same process in a few years was 
gone through with Indiana, and so with Illinois, and 
the same substantially with Michigan and Wisconsin. 


1 That is, of a republic, 


Addresses and Letters | 93 


Not only did that ordinance prevail, but it was con- 
stantly looked to whenever a step was taken by a new 
territory to become a state. Congress always turned 
their attention to it, and in all their movements upon 
this subject they traced their course by that ordinance 
of ’°87. When they admitted new states they adver- 
tised them of this ordinance as a part of the legislation 
of the country. They did so because they had traced 
the ordinance of ’87 throughout the history of this 
country. Begin with the men of the Revolution, and 
go down for sixty entire years, and until the last scrap 
of that territory comes into the Union in the form of the 
state of Wisconsin, everything was made to conform to 
the ordinance of ’87, excluding slavery from that vast 
extent of country. 

I omitted to mention in the right place that the 
Constitution of the United States was in process of 
being framed when that ordinance was made by the 
Congress of the Confederation; and one of the first 
acts of Congress itself, under the new Constitution 
itself, was to give force to that ordinance by putting 
power to carry it out into the hands of new officers 
under the Constitution, in the place of the old ones, 
who had been legislated out of existence by the change 
in the government from the Confederation to the Con- 
stitution. Not only so, but I believe Indiana once or 
twice, if not Ohio, petitioned the General Government 
for the privilege of suspending that provision, and al- 
lowing them to have slaves. A report made by Mr. 
Randolph, of Virginia, himself a slaveholder, was 
directly against it, and the action was to refuse them 
the privilege of violating the ordinance of ’87. 


94 Abraham Lincoln 


This period of history, which I have run over briefly, 
is, I presume, as familiar to most of the assembly as 
any other part of the history of our country. I suppose 
that few of my hearers are not as familiar with that 
part of history as I am, and I only mention it to recall 
your attention to it at this time. And hence I ask 
how extraordinary a thing it is that a man who has 
occupied a position upon the floor of the Senate of the 
United States, who is now in his third term, and who 
looks to see the government of this whole country fall 
into his own hands,! pretending to give a truthful and 
accurate history of the slavery question in this country, 
should so entirely ignore the whole of that portion of 
our history — the most important of all. Is it not a 
most extraordinary spectacle, that a man should stand 
up and ask for any confidence in his statements, who 
sets out as he does with portions of history, calling 
upon the people to believe that it is a true and fair 
representation, when the leading part and controlling 
feature of the whole history is carefully suppressed ? 

But the mere leaving out is not the most remarkable 
feature of this most remarkable essay. His proposition 
is to establish that the leading men of the Revolution 
were for his great principle of non-intervention by the 
government in the question of slavery in the territories ; 
while history shows that they decided in the cases 
actually brought before them in exactly the contrary 
way, and he knows it. Not only did they so decide 
at that time, but they stuck to it during sixty years, 
through thick and thin, as long as there was one of the 


1 Douglas seemed certain of the presidency at this time, 


Addresses and Letters 95 


Revolutionary heroes upon the stage of political action. 
Through their whole course, from first to last, they 
clung to freedom. And now he asks the community 
to believe that the men of the Revolution were in favor 
of his great principle, when we have the naked history 
that they themselves dealt with this very subject- 
matter of his principle, and utterly repudiated his 
principle, acting upon a precisely contrary ground. 
It is as impudent and absurd as if a prosecuting at- 
torney should stand up before a jury, and ask them to 
convict A as the murderer of B, while B was walking 
alive before them. 

I say again, if Judge medals asserts that the men 
of the Revolution acted upon principles by which, to 
be consistent with themselves, they ought to have 
adopted his popular sovereignty, then, upon a consid- 
eration of his own argument, he had a right to make 
you believe that they understood the principles of 
government, but misapplied them — that he has arisen 
to enlighten the world as to the just application of 
this principle. He has a right to try to persuade you 
that he understands their principles better than they 
did, and therefore he will apply them now, not as they 
did, but as they ought to have done. He has a right 
to go before the community, and try to convince them 
of this; but he has no right to attempt to impose 
upon anyone the belief that these men themselves 
approved of his great principle. There are two ways of 
establishing a proposition. One is by trying to dem- 
onstrate it upon reason, and the other is to show that 
great men in former times have thought so and so, and 
thus to pass it by the weight of pure authority. Now 


96 Abraham Lincoln 


if Judge Douglas will demonstrate somehow that this 
is popular sovereignty — the right of one man to make 
a slave of another, without any right in that other, or 
anyone else, to object — demonstrate it as Euclid 
demonstrated propositions — there is no objection. 
But when he comes forward, seeking to carry a princi- 
ple by bringing to it the authority of men who them- 
selves utterly repudiated that principle, I ask that 
he shall not be permitted to do it. 

I see, in the Judge’s speech here, a short sentence in 
these words: ‘‘Our fathers, when they formed this 
government under which we live, understood this 
question just as well and even better than we do now.” 
That is true; I stick to that. I will stand by Judge 
Douglas in that to the bitter end. And now, Judge 
Douglas, come and stand by me, and truthfully show 
how they acted, understanding it better than we do. 
All I ask of you, Judge Douglas, is to stick to the prop- 
osition that the men of the Revolution understood 
this subject better than we do now, and with that better 
understanding they acted better than you are trying 
to act now. 

I wish to say something now in regard to the Dred 
Scott decision, as dealt with by Judge Douglas. In 
that ‘‘memorable debate’? between Judge Douglas 
and myself, last year, the Judge thought fit to com- 
mence a process of catechising me, and at Freeport I 
answered his questions, and propounded some to him. 
Among others propounded to him was one that I have 
here now. The substance, as I remember it, is: ‘‘Can 
the people of a United States territory, under the Dred 
Scott decision, in any lawful way, against the wish of 


Addresses and Letters 97 


any citizen of the United States, exclude slavery from 
its limits, prior to the formation of a state constitu- 
tion?’’ He answered that they could lawfully exclude 
slavery from the United States territories, notwith- 
standing the Dred Scott decision. There was some- 
thing about that answer that has probably been a 
trouble to the Judge ever since.! 

The Dred Scott decision expressly gives every citi- 
zen of the United States a right to carry his slaves into 
the United States territories. And now there was some 
inconsistency in saying that the decision was right, 
and saying, too, that the people of the territory could 
lawfully drive slavery out again. When all the trash, 
the words, the collateral matter, was cleared away 
from it — all the chaff was fanned out of it —it was a 
bare absurdity: no less than that a thing may be law- 
fully driven away from where it has a lawful right to 
be. Clear it of all the verbiage, and that is the naked 
truth of his proposition — that a thing may be lawfully 
driven from the place where it has a lawful right to 
stay. Well, it was because the Judge couldn’t help 
seeing this that he has had so much trouble with it; 
and what I want to ask your especial attention to, just 
now, is to remind you, if you have not noticed the fact, 
that the Judge does not any longer say that the people 
can exclude slavery. He does not say so in the copy- 
right essay ;? he did not say so in the speech that he 
made here; and, so far as I know, since his reélection 
to the Senate, he has never said, as he did at Freeport, 


1This answer at Freeport won the senatorship for Douglas but 
split the Democratic party in the nation. 
2In Harper’s Magazine. 


98 Abraham Lincoln 


that the people of the territories can exclude slavery. 
He desired that you, who wish the territories to remain 
free, should believe that he stands by that position, 
but he does not say it himself. He escapes, to some 
extent, the absurd position I have stated by changing 
his language entirely. What he says now is something 
different in language, and we will consider whether it is 
not different in sense too. It is now that the Dred 
Scott decision, or rather the Constitution under that de- 
cision, does not carry slavery into the territories beyond 
the power of the people of the territories to control it 
as other property. He does not say the people can 
drive it out, but they can control it as other property. 
The language is different ; we should consider whether 
the sense is different. Driving a horse out of this lot 
is too plain a proposition to be mistaken about it; it 
is putting him on the other side of the fence. Or it 
might be a sort of exclusion of him from the lot if you 
were to kill him and let the worms devour him; but 
neither of these things is the same as “controlling him 
as other property.’’ That would be to feed him, to 
pamper him, to ride him, to use and abuse him, to make 
the most money out of him, ‘‘as other property”’ ; 
but, please you, what do the men who are in favor of 
slavery want more than this? What do they really 
want, other than that slavery, being in the territories, 
shall be controlled as other property ? 

If they want anything else, I do not comprehend it. 
I ask your attention to this, first, for the purpose of 
pointing out the change of ground the Judge has made; 
and, in the second place, the importance of the change 
— that that change is not such as to give you gentle- 


Addresses and Letters 99 


men who want his popular sovereignty the power to 
exclude the institution or drive it out at all. I know 
the Judge sometimes squints at the argument that in 
controlling it as other property by unfriendly legisla- 
tion they may control it to death, as you might in the 
case of a horse, perhaps, feed him so lightly and ride 
him so much that he would die. But when you come to 
legislative control, there is something more to be at- 
tended to. I have no doubt, myself, that if the terri- 
tories should undertake to control slave property as 
other property — that is, control it in such a way that 
it would be the most valuable as property, and make it 
bear its just proportion in the way of burdens as prop- 
erty — really deal with it as property — the Supreme 
Court of the United States will say, ‘‘God speed you, 
and amen.” But I undertake to give the opinion, at 
least, that if the territories attempt by any direct 
legislation to drive the man with his slave out of the 
territory, or to decide that his slave is free because of 
his being taken in there, or to tax him to such an ex- 
tent that he cannot keep him there, the Supreme 
Court will unhesitatingly decide all such legislation 
unconstitutional, as long as that Supreme Court is 
constructed as the Dred Scott Supreme Court is. The 
first two things they have already decided, except that 
there is a little quibble among lawyers between the words 
dicta and decision.! They have already decided that a 
negro cannot be made free by territorial legislation. 

1A decision of a court is its finding upon a question of law or 
fact arising in a case. A dictwm is a judicial opinion expressed by 
judges on points that do not necessarily arise in the case, and are not 


involved in it. <A dictum does not have the binding force upon sub- 
sequent or inferior courts that is accorded to a decision. (Hamilton.) 


100 Abraham. Lincoln 


What is that Dred Scott decision? Judge Douglas 
labors to show that it is one thing, while I think it is 
altogether different. It is a long opinion, but it is all 
embodied in this short statement : 


“The Constitution of the United States forbids 
Congress to deprive a man of his property without due 
process of law; the right of property in slaves is dis- 
tinctly and expressly affirmed in that Constitution ; 
therefore, if Congress shall undertake to say that a 
man’s slave is no longer his slave when he crosses a 
certain line into a territory, that is depriving him of 
his property without due process of law, and is uncon- 
stitutional.”’ 


There is the whole Dred Scott decision. They add 
that if Congress cannot do so itself, Congress cannot 
confer any power to do so, and hence any effort by the 
territorial legislature to do either of these things is 
absolutely decided against. It is a foregone conclu- 
sion by that court. 

Now, as to this indirect mode by “unfriendly legis- 
lation,” all lawyers here will readily understand that 
such a proposition cannot be tolerated for a moment, 
because a legislature cannot indirectly do that which 
it cannot accomplish directly. Then I say any legis- 
lation to control this property, as property, for its 
benefit as property, would be hailed by this Dred Scott 
Supreme Court, and fully sustained; but any legisla- 
tion driving slave property out, or destroying it as 
property, directly or indirectly, will most assuredly 
by that court be held unconstitutional. 


Addresses and Letters IOI 


Douglas is singularly unfortunate in his effort to 
make out that decision to be altogether negative, when 
the express language at the vital part is that this is 
distinctly affirmed in the Constitution. I think my- 
self, and I repeat it here, that this decision does not 
merely carry slavery into the territories, but by its 
logical conclusion it carries it into the states in which 
we live. One provision of that Constitution is that it 
shall be the supreme law of the land — I do not quote 
the language — any constitution or law of any state 
to the contrary notwithstanding. This Dred Scott 
decision says that the right of property in a slave is 
affirmed in that Constitution which is the supreme law 
of the land, any state constitution or law notwithstand- 
ing. Then I say that to destroy a thing which is dis- 
tinctly affirmed and supported by the supreme law of 
the land, even by a state constitution or law, is a vio- 
lation of that supreme law, and there is no escape from 
it. In my judgment there is no avoiding that result, 
save that the American people shall see that state 
constitutions are better construed ‘than our Constitu- 
tion is construed in that decision. They must take © 
care that it is more faithfully and truly carried out than 
it is there expounded. 

I must hasten to a conclusion. Near the beginning 
of my remarks I said that this insidious Douglas popu- 
lar sovereignty is the measure that now threatens the 
purpose of the Republican party ! to prevent slavery 
from being nationalized in the United States. I pro- 


1 Lincoln here alludes to the support Douglas was getting from 
prominent anti-slavery men who saw in Douglas’s plan a solution 
satisfactory to everybody. 


102 Abraham Lincoln 


pose to ask your attention for a little while to some 
propositions in affirmance of that statement. Take 
it just as it stands, and apply it as a principle; extend 
and apply that principle elsewhere, and consider where 
it will lead you. I now put this proposition, that 
Judge Douglas’s popular sovereignty applied will re- 
open the African slave-trade; and I will demonstrate 
it by any variety of ways in which you can turn the 
subject or look at it. 

The Judge says that the people of the territories 
have the right, by his principle, to have slaves if they 
want them. Then I say that the people in Georgia 
have the right to buy slaves in Africa if they want them, 
and I defy any man on earth to show any distinction 
between the two things—to show that the one is 
either more wicked or more unlawful; to show, on 
original principles, that one is better or worse than the 
other; or to show by the Constitution that one differs 
a whit from the other. He will tell me, doubtless, 
that there is no constitutional provision against people 
taking slaves into the new territories, and I tell him 
that there is equally no constitutional provision against 
buying slaves in Africa. He will tell you that a people 
in the exercise of popular sovereignty ought to do as 
they please about that thing, and have slaves if they 
want them; and I tell you that the people of Georgia 
are as much entitled to popular sovereignty, and to 
buy slaves in Africa, if they want them, as the people 
of the territory are to have slaves if they want them. 
I ask any man, dealing honestly with himself, to point 
out a distinction. 

I have recently seen a letter of Judge Douglas’s, in 


| 


Addresses and Letters 103 


which, without stating that to be the object, he doubt- 
less endeavors to make a distinction between the two. 
He says he is unalterably opposed to the repeal of the 
laws against the African slave-trade. And why? He 
then seeks to give a reason that would not apply to his 
popular sovereignty in the territories. What is that 
reason? ‘The abolition of the African slave-trade is 
a compromise of the Constitution.”’ I deny it. There 
is no truth in the proposition that the abolition of the 
African slave-trade is a compromise of the Constitu- 
tion. No man can put his finger on anything in the 
Constitution, or on the line of history, which shows it. 
It is a mere barren assertion, made simply for the 
purpose of getting up a distinction between the revival 
of the African slave-trade and his “great principle.”’ 
At the time the Constitution of the United States 
was adopted it was expected that the slave-trade would 
be abolished. I should assert, and insist upon that, if 
Judge Douglas denied it. But I know that it was 
equally expected that slavery would be excluded from 
the territories, and I can show by history that in re- 
gard to these two things public opinion was exactly 
alike, while in regard to positive action, there was more 
done in the ordinance of ’87 to resist the spread of 
slavery than was ever done to abolish the foreign slave- 
trade. Lest I be misunderstood, I say again that at 
the time of the formation of the Constitution, public 
expectation was that the slave-trade would be abolished 
but no more so than that the spread of slavery in the 
territories should be restrained. They stand alike, 
except that in the ordinance of ’87 there was a mark 
left by public opinion, showing that it was more com- 


104 Abraham Lincoln 


mitted against the spread of slavery in the territories 
than against the foreign slave-trade. 

Compromise! What word of compromise was there 
about it? Why, the public sense was then in favor of 
the abolition of the slave-trade; but there was at the 
time a very great commercial interest involved in it, 
and extensive capital in that branch of trade. There 
were doubtless the incipient stages of improvement 
in the South in the way of farming, dependent on the 
slave-trade, and they made a proposition to Congress to 
abolish the trade after allowing it twenty years, a 
sufficient time for the capital and commerce engaged 
in it to be transferred to other channels. They made 
no provision that it should be abolished in twenty 
years; I do not doubt that they expected it would be; 
but they made no bargain about it. The public sen- 
timent left no doubt in the minds of any that it would 
be done away. I repeat, there is nothing in the his- 
tory of those times in favor of that matter being a 
compromise of the Constitution. It was the public 
expectation at the time, manifested in a thousand ways, 
that the spread of slavery should also be restricted. 

Then I say if this principle is established, that there 
is no wrong in slavery, and whoever wants it has a 
right to have it; that it is a matter of dollars and cents ; 
a sort of question as to how they shall deal with brutes ; 
that between us and the negro here there is no sort of 
question, but that at the South the question is between 
the negro and the crocodile; and it is a mere matter 


1 Douglas said that on the Louisiana sugar plantations, it was “‘not 
a question between the white man and the negro, but between the 
negro and the crocodile. Between the negro and the crocodile, I 


é 


Addresses and Letters 105 


of policy; that there is a perfect right, according to 
interest, to do just as you please — when this is done, 
where this doctrine prevails, the miners and sappers will 
have formed public opinion for the slave-trade. They 
will be ready for Jeff Davis and Stephens, ! and other 
leaders of that company, to sound the bugle for the 
revival of the slave-trade, for the second Dred Scott 
decision, for the flood of slavery to be poured over the 
free states, while we shall be here tied down and help- 
less, and run over like sheep. 


Now, if you are opposed to slavery honestly, as 
much as anybody, I ask you to note that fact, and the 
like of which is to follow, to be plastered on, layer after 
layer, until very soon you are prepared to deal with the 
negro everywhere as with the brute. If public senti- 
ment has not been debauched already to this point, a 
new turn of the screw in that direction is all that is 
wanting; and this is constantly being done by the 
teachers of this insidious popular sovereignty. You 
need but one or two turns further until your minds, 
now ripening under these teachings, will be ready for 
all these things, and you will receive and support, or 
submit to, the slave-trade revived with all its horrors, 
a slave-code enforced in our territories, and a new Dred 
Scott decision to bring slavery up into the very heart 
of the free North. This, I must say, is but carrying 
out those words prophetically spoken by Mr. Clay 
take the side of the negro; but between the negro and the white man, 
I go for the white man.”’ 

1 Jefferson Davis, at this time Southern leader in the Senate, and 


Alexander H. Stephens, who had served in Congress with Lincoln; 
later the President and Vice President of the Confederacy. 


106 Abraham Lincoln 


many, many years ago —I believe more than thirty 
years — when he told an audience that if they would 
repress all tendencies to liberty and ultimate emanci- 
pation, they must go back to the era of our independ- 
ence and muzzle the cannon which thundered its annual 
joyous return on the Fourth of July; they must blow 
out the moral lights around us; they must penetrate 
the human soul, and eradicate the love of liberty; 
but until they did these things, and others eloquently 
enumerated by him, they could not repress all tend- 
encies to ultimate emancipation. 

I ask attention to the fact that in a preéminent de- 
gree these popular sovereigns are at this work: blowing 
out the moral lights around us; teaching that the negro 
is no longer a man, but a brute; that the Declaration 
has nothing to do with him; that he ranks with the 
crocodile and the reptile; that man, with body and 
soul, is a matter of dollars and cents. I suggest to 
this portion of the Ohio Republicans, or Democrats, 
if there be any present, the serious consideration of 
this fact, that there is now going on among you a steady 
process of debauching public opinion on this subject. 
With this, my friends, I bid you adieu. 


Lincoln’s Autobiography 


Fell was an Illinois Republican and one of many who were 
urging Lincoln to try for the nomination for President. 


Springfield, December 20, 1859 
J. W. Frwy, Esq. 


My dear Sir: 
Herewith is a little sketch, as you requested. There — 
is not much of it, for the reason, I suppose, that there 


Addresses and Letters 107 


is not much of me. If anything be made out of it, I 
wish it to be modest, and not to go beyond the material. 
If it were thought necessary to incorporate anything 
from any of my speeches, I suppose there would be 
no objection. Of course it must not appear to have 
been written by myself. 
Yours very truly, 
A. LINCOLN 


I was born February 12, 1809, in Hardin County, 
Kentucky. My parents were both born in Virginia, of 
undistinguished families — second families, perhaps I 
should say. My mother, who died in my tenth year, 
was of a family of the name of Hanks, some of whom 
now reside in Adams, and others in Macon County, 
Illinois. My paternal grandfather, Abraham  Lin- 
coln, emigrated from Rockingham County, Virginia, 
to Kentucky about 1781 or 1782, where a year or two 
later he was killed by the Indians, not in battle, but 
by stealth, when he was laboring to open a farm in the 
forest. His ancestors, who were Quakers, went to 
Virginia from Berks County, Pennsylvania. An effort 
to identify them with the New England family of the 
same name ended in nothing more definite than a sim- 
larity of Christian names in both families, such as 
Enoch, Levi, Mordecai, Solomon, Abraham, and the 
like. 

My father, at the death of his father, was but six 
years of age, and he grew up literally without educa- 
tion. He removed from Kentucky to what is now Spen- 
cer County, Indiana, in my eighth year. We reached 
our new home about the time the state came into the 


108 Abraham Lincoln 


Union. It was a wild region, with many bears and 
other wild animals still in the woods. There I grew 
up. There were some schools, so called, but no quali- 
fication was ever required of a teacher beyond ‘‘readin’, 
writin’, and cipherin’”’ to the rule of three. If a strag- 
gler supposed to understand Latin happened to sojourn 
in the neighborhood, he was looked upon as a wizard. 
There was absolutely nothing to excite ambition for 
education. Of course, when I came of age I did not 
know much. Still, somehow, I could read, write, and 
cipher to the rule of three, but that was all. I have 
not been to school since. The little advance I now have 
upon this store of education, I have picked up from 
time to time under the pressure of necessity. 

I was raised to farm work, which I continued till I 
was twenty-two. At twenty-one I came to Illinois, 
Macon County. Then I got to New Salem, at that time 
in Sangamon, now in Menard County, where I remained 
a year as a sort of clerk in a store. Then came the 
Black Hawk War; and I was elected a captain of vol- 
unteers, a success which gave me more pleasure than 
any I have had since. I went the campaign, was elated, 
ran for the legislature the same year (1832), and was 
beaten — the only time I ever have been beaten by 
the people. The next and three succeeding hkiennial 
elections I was elected to the legislature. I was not a 
candidate afterward. During this legislative period 
I had studied law, and removed to Springfield to prac- 
tice it. In 1846 I was once elected to the lower House 
of Congress. Was not a candidate for reélection. 
From 1849 to 1854, both inclusive, practiced law more 
assiduously than ever before. Always a Whig in 


Addresses and Letters 109 


politics ;! and generally on the Whig electoral tickets, 
making active canvasses. I was losing interest in poli- 
tics when the repeal of the Missouri Compromise 
aroused me again. What I have done since then is 
pretty well known. 

If any personal description of me is thought desir- 
able, it may be said I am, in height, six feet four inches, 
nearly ; lean in flesh, weighing on an average one hun- 
dred and eighty pounds; dark complexion, with coarse 
black hair and gray eyes. No other marks or brands 


recollected. 
Yours truly, 


A. LINCOLN 


The Cooper Union Speech 


The speech at Springfield and the debates with Douglas 
did not win the senatorship for Lincoln, but they aroused 
curiosity about him in the East, and developed his confidence 
in himself. Consequently, he welcomed the invitation to 
speak at Cooper Union in the city of New York, and the op- 
portunity to meet such influential men as Horace Greeley, 
of the New York Tribune, and William Cullen Bryant, of 
the New York Evening Post. For the subject of his address 
he chose an argument that he had used many times in his 
eonflict with Douglas. He prepared his speech with infinite 
care, realizing that he would come back to Illinois a country 
lawyer and nothing else, or go on from this point a serious 
aspirant for the presidency. His appearance — the awk- 
ward figure and ill-fitting suit — at first disappointed the 
crowd. But after he had gotten into the swing of his address, 
his intense earnestness held their attention, and the force of 
his clear argument won their admiration. One who heard 
him says, ‘‘When he spoke he was transformed; his eye 


1 Note Lincoln’s caution in declaring his allegiance to one of the 
“regular’’ parties. , 


IIO Abraham Lincoln. - 


kindled, his voice rang, his face shone and seemed to light 
up the whole assembly.”’ 


[February 27, 1860] 


Mr. PRESIDENT AND FELLOW-CITIZENS OF NEW 
York: The facts with which I shall deal this eve- 
ning are mainly old and familiar; nor is there anything 
new in the general use I shall make of them. If there 
shall be any novelty, it will be in the mode of present- 
ing the facts, and the inferences and observations fol- 
lowing that presentation. In his speech last autumn 
at Columbus,! Ohio, as reported in the New York Times, 
Senator Douglas said : 

“Our fathers, when they framed the government 
under which we live, understood this question just as 
well, and even better, than we do now.” 

I fully indorse this, and I adopt it as a text for this 
discourse. I so adopt it because it furnishes a precise 
and an agreed starting-point for a discussion between 
Republicans and that wing of the Democracy headed 
by Senator Douglas. It simply leaves the inquiry: 
What was the understanding those fathers had of the 
question mentioned ? 

What is the frame of government under which we 
live? The answer must be, ‘‘The Constitution of the 
United States.”” That Constitution consists of the 
original, framed in 1787, and under which the present 
government first went into operation, and twelve sub- 
sequently framed amendments, the first ten of which 
were framed in 1789. 


1 See Lincoln’s speech at Columbus in this volume. 


HeaApD or LINCOLN By GUTZON BORGLUM. 
Original in the Rotunda of the Capitol, Washington, D. C. 


UIBRARY # 
UNIVERSI!Y OF LINOIS 


S PEFS> «5 
URZANA a 


Addresses and Letters III 


Who were our fathers that framed the Constitution? 
I suppose the “thirty-nine”’ who signed the original in- 
strument may be fairly called our fathers who framed 
that part of the present government. It is almost ex- 
actly .true to say they framed it, and it is altogether 
true to say they fairly represented the opinion and 
sentiment of the whole nation at that time. Their 
names, being familiar to nearly all, and accessible to 
quite all, need not now be repeated. 

I take these “thirty-nine,” for the present, as be- — 
ing ‘our fathers who framed the government under 
which we live.” What is the question which, accord- 
- ing to the text, those fathers understood ‘‘just as well 
and even better than we do now’’? 

It is this: Does the proper division of local from 
Federal authority, or anything in the Constitution for- 
bid our Federal Government to control as to slavery in 
our Federal Territories? 

Upon this, Senator Douglas holds the affirmative, 
and Republicans, the negative. This affirmation and 
denial form an issue; and this issue — this question — 
is precisely what the text declares our fathers under- 
stood “better than we.’’ Let us now inquire whether 
the “thirty-nine,”’ or any of them, ever acted upon this 
question; and if they did, how they acted upon it — 
how they expressed that better understanding. In 
1784, three years before the Constitution, the United 
States then owning the Northwestern Territory, and 
no other, the Congress of the Confederation had be- 
fore them the question of prohibiting slavery in that 
Territory; and four of the “thirty-nine” who after- 
wards framed the Constitution were in that Congress, 


12 Abraham Lincoln 


and voted on that question. Of these, Roger Sherman, 
Thomas Mifflin, and Hugh Williamson voted for the 
prohibition, thus showing that in their understanding, 
no line dividing local from Federal authority nor any- 
thing else, properly forbade the Federal Government 
to control as to slavery in Federal territory. The other 
of the four, James McHenry, voted against the pro- 
hibition, showing that for some cause he thought it im- 
_ proper to vote for it. 

In 1787, still before the Constitution, but while the 
convention was in session framing it, and while the 
Northwestern Territory still was the only Territory 
owned by the United States, the same question of pro- 
hibiting slavery in the Territory again came before the 
Congress of the Confederation and two more of the 
“thirty-nine”? who afterward signed the Constitution 
were in that Congress, and voted on the question. 
They were William Blount, and William Few; and 
they both voted for the prohibition — thus showing 
that in their understanding no line dividing local from 
Federal authority, nor anything else, properly forbade 
the Federal Government to control as to slavery in 
Federal territory. This time the prohibition became 
a law, being part of what is now well known as the or- 
dinance of ’87. 

The question of Federal control of slavery in the 
Territories seems not to have been directly before the 
convention which framed the original Constitution ; 
and hence it is not recorded that the ‘‘thirty-nine,’’ or 
any of them, while engaged on that instrument, ex- 
pressed any opinion on that precise question. 

In 1789, by the first Congress which sat under the 


Addresses and Letters 113 


Constitution, an act was passed to enforce the ordi- 
nance of ’87, including the prohibition of slavery in 
the Northwestern Territory. The bill for this act was 
~ reported by one of the “ thirty-nine’? — Thomas Fitz- 
simmons, then a member of the House of Representa- 
tives from Pennsylvania. It- went through all its 
stages without a word of opposition, and finally passed 
both branches without ayes and nays, which is equiva- 
lent to a unanimous passage. In this Congress there 
were sixteen of the “thirty-nine” fathers who framed 
the original Constitution. They were John Langdon, 
Nicholas Gilman, William 8. Johnson, Roger Sherman, 
Robert Morris, Thos. Fitzsimmons, William Few, 
Abraham Baldwin, Rufus King, William Paterson, 
George Clymer, Richard Bassett, George Read, Pierce 
Butler, Daniel Carroll, and James Madison. 

This shows that, in their understanding, no line 
dividing local from Federal authority, nor anything 
in the Constitution, properly forbade Congress to pro- 
hibit slavery in the Federal territory; else both their 
fidelity to correct principle, and their oath to support 
the Constitution, would have constrained them to op- 
pose the prohibition. 

Again, George Washington, another of the ‘‘thirty- 
nine,’ was then President of the United States, and 
as such approved and signed the bill, thus completing 
its validity as a law, and thus showing that, in his 
understanding, no line dividing local from Federal au- 
thority, nor anything in the Constitution, forbade the 
Federal Government to control as to slavery in Fed- 
eral territory. 

No great while after the adoption of the original 


114 Abraham Lincoln 


Constitution, North Carolina ceded to the Federal 
Government the country now constituting the State of 
Tennessee; and a few years later Georgia ceded that 
which now constitutes the States of Mississippi and 
Alabama. In both deeds of cession it was made a con- 
dition by the ceding States that the Federal Govern- 
ment should not prohibit slavery in the ceded country. 
Besides this, slavery was then actually in the ceded 
country. Under these circumstances, Congress, on 
taking charge of these countries, did not absolutely 
prohibit slavery within them. But they did interfere 
with it — take control of it — even there, to a certain 
extent. In 1798 Congress organized the Territory of 
Mississippi. In the act of organization they prohibited 
the bringing of slaves into the Territory from any place 
without the United States, by fine, and giving freedom 
to slaves so brought. This act passed both branches of 
Congress without yeas and nays. In that Congress 
were three of the “thirty-nine”? who framed the orig- 
inal Constitution. They were John Langdon, George 
Read, and Abraham Baldwin. They all probably 
voted for it. Certainly they would have placed their 
opposition to it upon record if, in their understanding, 
any line dividing local from Federal authority, or any- 
thing in the Constitution, properly forbade the Fed- 
eral Government to control as to slavery in Federal 
territory. 

In 1808 the Federal Government purchased the 
Louisiana country. Our former territorial acquisi- 
tions came from certain of our own States; but this 
Louisiana country was acquired from a foreign nation. 
In 1804 Congress gave a territorial organization to 


Addresses and Letters IIS 


that part of it which now constitutes the State of 
Louisiana. New Orleans, lying within that part, was 
an old and comparatively large city. There were other 
considerable towns and settlements, and slavery was 
extensively and thoroughly intermingled with the peo- 
ple. Congress did not, in the Territorial Act, prohibit 
slavery; but they did interfere with it — take control 
of it — in a more marked and extensive way than they 
did in the case of Mississippi. ‘The substance of the 
provision therein made in relation to slaves was: 

Ist. That no slave should be imported into the 
Territory from foreign parts. 

2d. That no slave should be carried into it who had 
been imported into the United States since the first 
day of May, 1798. 

3d. That no slave should be carried into it, except 
by the owner, and for his own use as a settler; the 
penalty in all the cases being a fine upon the violator 
of the law, and freedom to the slave. 

This act also was passed without yeas or nays. In 
the Congress which passed it there were two of the 
“thirty-nine.” They were Abraham Baldwin and 
Jonathan Dayton. As stated in the case of Mississippi, 
it is probable they both voted for it. They would not 
have allowed it to pass without recording their opposi- 
tion to it if, in their understanding, it violated either 
the line properly dividing local from Federal authority, 
or any provision of the Constitution. 

In 1819-20 came and passed the Missouri question. 
Many votes were taken by yeas and nays, in both 
branches of Congress, upon the various phases of the 
general question. Two of the “thirty-nine”? — Rufus 


1i6 Abraham Lincoln. 


King and Charles Pinckney — were members of that 
Congress. Mr. King steadily voted for slavery pro- 
hibition and against all compromises, while Mr. Pinck- 
ney as steadily voted against slavery prohibition and 
against all compromises. By this, Mr. King showed 
that, in his understanding, no line dividing local from 
Federal authority, nor anything in the Constitution, 
was violated by Congress prohibiting slavery in Federal 
territory ; while Mr. Pinckney by his votes, showed 
that, in his understanding, there was some sufficient 
reason for opposing such prohibition in that case. 

The cases I have mentioned are the only acts of the 
“thirty-nine”’ or of any of them, upon the direct issue, 
which I have been able to discover. 

To enumerate the persons who thus acted as being 
four in 1784, two in 1787, seventeen in 1789, three in 
1798, two in 1804, and two in 1819-20, there would be 
thirty of them. But this would be counting John 
Langdon, Roger Sherman, William Few, Rufus King, 
and George Read, each twice, and Abraham Baldwin 
three times. The true number of those of the “ thirty- 
nine’? whom I have shown to have acted upon the 
question which, by the text, they understood better 
than we, is twenty-three, leaving sixteen not shown to 
have acted upon it in any way. 

Here, then, we have twenty-three out of our thirty- 
nine fathers ‘“‘who framed the government under which 
we live,” who have, upon their official responsibility 
and their corporal oaths, acted upon the very question 
which the text affirms they ‘‘understood just as well, 
and even better, than we do now’’; and twenty-one 
of them — a clear majority of the whole ‘thirty-nine”’ 


Addresses and Letters Try 


—so acting upon it as to make them guilty of gross 
political impropriety and willful perjury, if, in their 
understanding, any proper division between local and 
Federal authority, or anything in the Constitution they 
had made themselves, and sworn to support, forbade 
the Federal Government to control as to slavery in the 
Federal Territories. Thus the twenty-one acted and, 
as actions speak louder than words, so actions under 
such responsibility speak still louder. 

Two of the twenty-three voted against congressional 
prohibition of slavery in the Federal Territories, in the 
instances in which they acted upon the question. But 
for what reasons they so voted is not known. They 
may have done so because they thought a proper 
division of local from Federal authority, or some pro- 
vision or principle of the Constitution, stood in the way ; 
or they may, without any such question, have voted 
against the prohibition on what appeared to them to be 
sufficient grounds of expediency. No one who has 
sworn to support the Constitution can conscientiously 
vote for what he understands to be an unconstitutional 
measure, however expedient he may think it; but one 
may and ought to vote against a measure which he 
deems constitutional if, at the same time, he deems it 
inexpedient. It, therefore, would be unsafe to set 
down even the two who voted against the prohibition 
as having done so because in their understanding, any 
proper division of local from Federal authority, or any- 
thing in the Constitution, forbade the Federal Govern- 
ment to control as to slavery in Federal territory. 

The remaining sixteen of the “thirty-nine,” so far 
as I have discovered, have left no record of their an- 


118 Abraham Lincoln 


derstanding upon the direct question of Federal con- 
trol of slavery in the Federal Territories. But there is 
much reason to believe that their understanding upon 
that question would not have appeared different from 
that of their twenty-three compeers, had it been mani- 
fested at all. 

For the purpose of adhering rigidly to the text, I 
have purposely omitted whatever understanding may 
have been manifested by any person, however dis- 
tinguished, other than the thirty-nine fathers who 
framed the original Constitution; and, for the same 
reason, I have also omitted whatever understanding 
may have been manifested by any of the ‘“‘thirty- 
nine’’ even on any other phase of the general question 
of slavery. If we should look into their acts and dec- 
larations on those other phases, as the foreign slave 
trade, and the morality and policy of slavery generally, 
it would appear to us that on the direct question of 
Federal control of slavery in Federal Territories, the 
sixteen, if they had acted at all, would probably have 
acted just as the twenty-three did. Among that six- 
teen were several of the most noted antislavery men of 
those times, — as Dr. Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, 
and Gouverneur Morris, — while there was not one 
now known to have been otherwise, unless it may be 
John Rutledge, of South Carolina. 

The sum of the whole is that of our thirty-nine 
fathers who framed the original Constitution, twenty- 
one — a clear majority of the whole — certainly under- 
stood that no proper division of local from Federal 
authority, nor any part of the Constitution, forbade 
the Federal Government to control slavery in the Fed- 


Addresses and Letters II9 


eral Territories; while all the rest had probably the 
same understanding. Such, unquestionably, was the 
understanding of our fathers who framed the original 
Constitution; and the text affirms that they under- 
stood the question “‘better than we.” 

But, so far, I have been considering the understand- 
ing of the question manifested by the framers of the 
original Constitution. In and by the original instru- 
ment, a mode was provided for amending it; and, as I 
have already stated, the present frame of “the govern- 
ment under which we live”’ consists of that original, 
and twelve amendatory articles framed and adopted 
since. Those who now insist that Federal control of 
slavery in Federal Territories violates the Constitution, 
point us to the provisions which they suppose it thus 
violates; and, as I understand, they all fix upon provi- 
sions in these amendatory articles, and not in the orig- 
inal instrument. The Supreme Court in the Dred Scott 
case, plant themselves upon the fifth amendment, which 
provides that no person shall be deprived of ‘‘life, lib- 
erty, or property without due process of law’’; while 
Senator Douglas and his peculiar adherents plant them- 
selves upon the tenth amendment, providing that “the 
powers not delegated to the United States by the Con- 
stitution”’ “‘are reserved to the States respectively, or 
to the people.” 

Now, it so happens that these amendments were 
framed by the first Congress which sat under the Con- 
stitution — the identical Congress which passed the 
act, already mentioned, enforcing the prohibition of 
slavery in the Northwestern Territory. Not only was 
- it the same Congress, but they were the identical, same 


120 Abraham Lincoln. 


individual men who, at the same session, and at the 
same time within the session, had under considera- 
tion, and in progress toward maturity, these constitu- 
tional amendments, and this act prohibiting slavery in 
all the territory the nation then owned. The constitu- 
tional amendments were introduced before, and passed 
after, the act enforcing the ordinance of ’87; so that, 
during the whole pendency of the act to enforce the 
ordinance, the constitutional amendments were also 
pending. 

The seventy-six members of that Congress, includ- 
ing sixteen of the framers of the original Constitution, 
as before stated, were preéminently our fathers who 
framed that part of “the government under which we 
live” which is now claimed as forbidding the Federal 
Government to control slavery in the Federal Terri- 
tories. 

Is it not a little presumptuous in any one at this day 
to affirm that the two things which that Congress de- 
liberately framed, and carried to maturity at the same 
time, are absolutely inconsistent with each other? 
And does not such affirmation become impudently ab- 
surd when coupled with the other affirmation, from the 
same mouth, that those who did the two things alleged 
to be inconsistent, understood whether they really were 
inconsistent better than we— better than he who 
affirms that they are inconsistent ? 

It is surely safe to assume that the thirty-nine framers 
of the original Constitution, and the seventy-six mem- 
bers of the Congress which framed the amendments 
thereto, taken together, do certainly include those who 
may be fairly called ‘‘our fathers who framed the 


Addresses. and Letters 121 


government under which we live.’”? And so assuming, 
I defy any man to show that any one of them ever, 
in his whole life, declared that, in his understanding, 
any proper division of local from Federal authority, 
or any part of the Constitution, forbade the Federal 
Government to control as to slavery in the Federal 
Territories. I go a step further. I defy any one to 
show that any living man in the whole world ever did, 
prior to the beginning of the present century (and I 
might almost say prior to the beginning of the last 
half of the present century), declare that, in his under- 
standing, any proper division of local from Federal 
authority, or any part of the Constitution, forbade the 
Federal Government to control as to slavery in the 
Federal Territories. To those who now so declare I 
give not only “our fathers who framed the government 
under which we live,”’ but with them all other living 
men within the century in which it was framed, among 
whom to search, and they shall not be able to find the 
evidence of a single man agreeing with them. 

Now, and here, let me guard a little against being 
misunderstood. I do not mean to say we are bound 
to follow implicitly in whatever our fathers did. To do 
so, would be to discard all the lights of current experi- 
ence — to reject all progress, all improvement. What 
I do say is, that if we would supplant the opinions and 
policy of our fathers in any case, we should do so upon 
evidence so conclusive, and argument so clear, that 
even their great authority, fairly considered and 
weighed, cannot stand; and most surely not in a case 
whereof we ourselves Heclare they understood the ques- 
tion better than we. 


122 Abraham Lincoln 


If any man at this day sincerely believes that a 
proper division of local from Federal authority, or any 
part of the Constitution, forbids the Federal Govern- 
ment to control as to slavery in the Federal Territories, 
he is right to say so, and to enforce his position by all 
truthful evidence and fair argument which he can. But 
he has no right to mislead others who have less access 
to history, and less leisure to study it, into the false 
belief that “our fathers who framed the government 
under which we live”’ were of the same opinion — thus 
substituting falsehood and deception for truthful evi- 
dence and fair argument. If any man at this day 
sincerely believes ‘our fathers who framed the govern- 
ment under which we live” used and applied principles, 
in other cases, which ought to have led them to under- 
stand that a proper division of local from Federal au- 
thority, or some part of the Constitution, forbids the 
Federal Government to control as to slavery in the Fed- 
eral Territories, he is right to say so. But he should, 
at the same time, brave the responsibility of declaring 
that, in his opinion, he understands their principles 
better than they did themselves; and especially should 
he not shirk that responsibility by asserting that they 
understood the question just as well and even better 
than we do now. | 

But enough! Let all who believe that “our fathers 
who framed the government under which we live un- 
derstood this question just as well, and even better 
than we do now,” speak as they spoke, and act as they 
acted upon it. This is all Republicans ask, all Repub- 
licans desire, in relation to slavery. As those fathers 
marked it, so let it again be marked, as an evil not to be 


. 


Addresses and Letters 123 


extended, but to be tolerated and protected only be- 
cause of and so far as its actual presence among us 
makes that toleration and protection a necessity. Let 
all the guaranties those fathers gave it be not grudg- 
ingly, but fully and fairly maintained. For this Re- 
publicans contend, and with this, so far as I know or 
believe, they will be content. 

And now, if they would listen, — as I suppose they 
will not, — I would address a few words to the South- 
ern people. 

-I would say to them: You consider yourselves a rea- 
sonable and a just people; and I consider that in the 
general qualities of reason and justice you are not in- 
ferior to any other people. Still, when you speak of us 
Republicans, you do so only to denounce us as reptiles, 
or, at the best, as no better than outlaws. You will 
grant a hearing to pirates or murderers, but nothing like 
it to ‘‘Black Republicans.”’ In all your contentions 
with one another, each of you deems an unconditional 
condemnation of ‘‘Black Republicanism”’ as the first 
thing to be attended to. Indeed, such condemnation 
of us seems to be an indispensable prerequisite — lh- 
cense, so to speak — among you to be admitted or per- 
mitted to speak at all. Now, can you or not be pre- 
vailed upon to pause and to consider whether this is 
quite just to us, or even to yourselves? Bring forward 
your charges and specifications, and then be patient 
long enough to hear us deny or justify. 

You say we are sectional. Wedenyit. That makes 
an issue; and the burden of proof is upon you. You 
produce your proof; and what is it? Why, that our 
party has no existence in your section — gets no votes 


124 Abraham Lincoln 


in your section. The fact is substantially true; but 
does it prove the issue? If it does, then, in case we 
should, without change of principle, begin to get votes 
in your section, we should thereby cease to be sectional. 
You cannot escape this conclusion; and yet, are you 
willing to abide by it? If you are, you will probably 
soon find that we have ceased to be sectional, for we 
shall get votes in your section this very year. You 
will then begin to discover, as the truth plainly is, that 
your proof does not touch the issue. The fact that we 
get no votes in your section is a fact of your making, 
and not of ours. 

And if there be fault in that fact, that fault is prima- 
rily yours, and remains so. until you show that we repel 
you by some wrong principle or practice. If we do re- 
pel you by any wrong principle or practice, the fault is 
ours; but this brings you to where you ought to have 
started — to a discussion of the right or wrong of our 
principle. If our principle, put in practice, would 
wrong your section for the benefit of ours, or for any 
other object, then our principle, and we with it, are 
sectional, and are justly opposed and denounced as 
such. Meet us, then, on the question of whether our 
principle, put in practice, would wrong your section ; 
and so meet us as if it were possible that something 
may be said on our side. Do you accept the challenge? 
No! Then you really believe that the principle which 
“our fathers who framed the government under which 
we live” thought so clearly right as to adopt it, and in- 
dorse it again and again, upon their official oaths, is in 
fact so clearly wrong as to demand your condemnation 
without a moment’s consideration. 


Addresses and Letters 125 


Some of you delight to flaunt in our faces the warn- 
ing against sectional parties given by Washington in 
his Farewell Address. Less than eight years before 
Washington gave that warning he had, as President of 
the United States, approved and signed an act of Con- 
gress enforcing the prohibition of slavery in the North- 
western Territory, which act embodied the policy of 
the government upon that subject up to and at the very 
moment he penned that warning; and about one year 
after he penned it, he wrote Lafayette that he consid- 
ered that prohibition a wise measure, expressing in the 
same connection his hope that we should at some time 
have a confederacy of free States. 

Bearing this in mind, and seeing that sectionalism 
has since arisen upon this same subject, is that warning 
a weapon in your hands against us, or in our hands 
against. you? Could Washington himself speak, would 
he cast the blame of that sectionalism upon us, who 
sustain his policy, or upon you, who repudiate it? We 
respect that warning of Washington, and we commend 
it to you, together with his example pointing to the 
right application of it. 

But you say you are conservative, — eminently con- 
servative, — while we are revolutionary, destructive, or 
something of the sort. 

What is conservatism? Is it not adherence to the 
old and tried, against the new and untried? We stick 
to, contend for, the identical old policy on the point in 
controversy which was adopted by ‘‘our fathers who 
framed the government under which we live’; while 
you with one accord reject, and scout, and spit upon that 
old policy, and insist upon substituting something new. 


126 Abraham Lincoln 


True, you disagree among yourselves as to what that 
substitute shall be. You are divided on new proposi- 
tions and plans, but you are unanimous in rejecting 
and denouncing the old policy of the fathers. Some of 
you are for reviving the foreign slave trade; some for a 
Congressional slave code for the Territories; some for 
Congress forbidding the Territories to prohibit slavery 
within their limits; some for maintaining slavery in 
the Territories through the judiciary; some for the 
‘‘our-reat pur-rinciple” that “if one man would en- 
slave another, no third man should object,” fantasti- 
cally called “popular sovereignty”; but never a man 
among you is in favor of Federal prohibition of slavery 
in Federal Territories, according to the practice of “‘our 
fathers who framed the government under which we 
live.””? Not one of all your various plans can show a 
precedent or an advocate in the century within which 
our government originated. 

Consider, then, whether your claim of conservatism 
for yourselves, and your charge of destructiveness 
against us, are based on the most clear and stable 
foundations. 

Again, you say we have made the slavery question 
more prominent than it formerly was. We deny it. 
We admit that it is more prominent, but we deny that 
we made it so. It was not we, but you, who discarded 
the old policy of the fathers. We resisted, and still 
resist, your innovation; and thence comes the greater 
prominence of the question. Would you have that 
question reduced to its former proportions? Go back 
to that old policy. What has been will be again, under 
the same conditions. If you would have the peace of 


Addresses and Letters 127 


the old times, readopt the precepts and policy of the 
old times. 

You charge that we stir up insurrections among your 
slaves. We deny it; and what is your proof? Harp- 
er’s Ferry! John Brown! John Brown was no Re- 
publican; and you have failed to implicate a single 
Republican in his Harper’s Ferry enterprise. If any 
member of our party is guilty in that matter, you know 
or you do not know it. If you do know it, you are in- 
excusable for not designating the man and _ proving 
the fact. If you do not know it, you are inexcusable 
for asserting it, and especially for persisting in the 
assertion after you have tried and failed to make the 
proof. You need not be told that persisting in a 
charge which one does not know to be true is simply 
malicious slander. 

Some of you admit that no Republican designedly 
alded or encouraged the Harper’s Ferry affair, but still 
insist that our doctrines and declarations necessarily 
lead to such results. We do not believe it. We know 
we hold no doctrine, and make no declaration, which 
were not held to and made by ‘‘our fathers who framed 
the government under which we live.’? You never 
dealt fairly by us in relation to this affair. When it 
occurred, some important State elections were near at 
hand, and you were in evident glee with the belief that, 
by charging the blame upon us, you could get an ad- 
vantage of us in those elections. The elections came, 
and your expectations were not quite fulfilled. Every 
Republican man knew that, as to himself at least, your 
charge was a slander, and he was not much inclined by 
it to cast his vote in your favor. Republican doctrines 


128 Abraham Lincoln 


and declarations are accompanied with a continual pro- 
test against any interference whatever with your slaves, 
or with you about your slaves. Surely this does not 
encourage them to revolt. True, we do, in common 
with ‘‘our fathers who framed the government under 
which we live,”’ declare our belief that slavery is wrong ; 
but the slaves do not hear us declare even this. For 
anything we say or do, the slaves would scarcely know 
there is a Republican party. I believe they would not, 
in fact, generally know it but for your misrepresenta- 
tions of us in their hearing. In your political contests 
among yourselves, each faction charges the other with 
sympathy with Black Republicanism; and then, to 
give point to the charge, defines Black Republicanism 
to simply be insurrection, blood, and thunder among 
the slaves. 

Slave insurrections are no more common now than 
they were before the Republican party was organized. 
What induced the Southampton insurrection, twenty- 
eight years ago, in which at least three times as many 
lives were lost as at Harper’s Ferry? You can scarcely 
stretch your very elastic fancy to the conclusion that 
Southampton was ‘‘got up by Black Republicanism.”’ 
In the present state of things in the United States, I 
do not think a general, or even a very extensive, slave 
insurrection is possible. The indispensable concert of 
action cannot be attained. The slaves have no means 
of rapid communication; nor can incendiary freemen, 
black or white, supply it. The explosive materials are 
everywhere in parcels; but there neither are, nor can 
be supplied, the indispensable connecting trains. 
~ Much is said by Southern people about the affection 


Addresses and Letters 129 


of slaves for their masters and mistresses; and a part of 
it, at least, is true. A plot for an uprising could scarcely 
be devised and communicated to twenty individuals 
before some one of them, to save the life of a favorite 
master or mistress, would divulge it. This is the rule; 
and the slave revolution in Haiti was not an exception 
to it, but a case occurring under peculiar circumstances. 
The Gunpowder Plot of British history, though not 
connected with slaves, was more in point. In that case, 
only about twenty were admitted to the secret; and 
yet one of them, in his anxiety to save a friend, betrayed 
the plot to that friend, and, by consequence, averted the 
calamity. Occasional poisonings from the kitchen, and 
open or stealthy assassinations in the field, and local 
revolts extending to a score or so, will continue to oc- 
cur as the natural results of slavery; but no general 
insurrection of slaves, as I think, can happen in this 
country for a long time. Whoever much fears, or much 
hopes, for such an event, will be alike disappointed. 

In the language of Mr. Jefferson, uttered many years 
ago, “It is still in our power to direct the process of 
emancipation and deportation peaceably, and in such 
slow degrees as that the evil will wear off insensibly, 
and their places be, pari passu,' filled up by free 
white laborers. If, on the contrary, it is left to force 
itself on, human nature must shudder at the prospect 
held up.” 

Mr. Jefferson did not mean to say, nor do I, that the 
power of emancipation is in the Federal Government. 
He spoke of Virginia; and, as to the power of emanci- 


1 At equal pace; that is, at the same time. 


130 Abraham Lincoln 


pation, I speak of the slaveholding States only. The 
Federal Government, however, as we insist, has the 
power of restraining the extension of the institution — 
the power to insure that a slave insurrection shall never 
occur on any American soil which is now free from 
slavery. 

John Brown’s effort was peculiar. It was not a slave 
insurrection. It was an attempt by white men to get 
up a revolt among slaves, in which the slaves refused to 
participate. In fact, it was so absurd that the slaves, - 
with all their ignorance, saw plainly enough it could not 
succeed. That affair, in its philosophy, corresponds 
with the many attempts, related in history, at the 
assassination of kings and emperors. An enthusiast 
broods over the oppression of a people till he fancies 
himself commissioned by Heaven to liberate them. He 
ventures the attempt, which ends in little else than his 
own execution. Orsini’s attempt! on Louis Napoleon, 
and John Brown’s attempt at Harper’s Ferry, were, in 
their philosophy, precisely the same. The eagerness to 
cast blame on Old England in the one case, and on New 
England in the other, does not disprove the sameness 
of the two things. 

And how much would it avail you if you could, by 
the use of John Brown, Helper’s book, and the like, 
break up the Republican organization? Human ac- 
tion can be modified to some extent, but human nature 
cannot be changed. There is a judgment and a feeling 
against slavery in this nation, which cast at least a 


1 The plot to assassinate Napoleon III was hatched by foreigners 
residing in England; consequently, some Frenchmen called the 
English ‘‘ protectors of murderers.”’ 


Addresses and Letters 131 


million and a half of votes... You cannot destroy that 
judgment and feeling — that sentiment — by break- 
ing up the political organization which rallies around it. 
You can scarcely scatter and disperse an army which 
has been formed into order in the face of your heaviest 
fire; but if you could, how much would you gain by 
forcing the sentiment which created it out of the peace- 
ful channel of the ballot-box into some other channel? 
What would that other channel probably be? Would 
the number of John Browns be lessened or enlarged by 
the operation? 

But you will break up the Union rather than submit 
to a denial of your constitutional rights. 

That has a somewhat reckless sound; but it would 
be palliated, if not fully justified, were we proposing, by 
the mere force of numbers, to deprive you of some right 
plainly written down in the Constitution. But we are 
proposing no such thing. 

When you make these declarations you have a spe- 
cific and well-understood allusion to an assumed consti- 
tutional right of yours to take slaves into the Federal 
Territories, and to hold them there as property. But 
no such right is specifically written in the Constitution. 
That instrument is literally silent about any such 
right. We, on the contrary, deny that such a right 
has any existence in the Constitution, even by i1m- 
plication. 

Your purpose, then, plainly stated, is that you will 
destroy the government, unless you be allowed to con- 
strue and force the Constitution as you please, on all 


1 Frémont in 1856 polled 1,340,000 votes; Lincoln, in 1860, polled 
1,866,000. 


132 Abraham Lincoln 


points in dispute between you and us. You will rule 
or ruin in all events. 

This, plainly stated, is your language. Perhaps you 
will say the Supreme Court has decided the disputed 
constitutional question in your favor. Not quite so. 
But waiving the lawyer’s distinction between dictum 
and decision, the court has decided the question for 
you ina sort of way. The court has substantially said, 
it is your constitutional right to take slaves into the 
Federal Territories, and to hold them there as property. 
When I say the decision was made in a sort of way, I 
mean it was made in a divided court, by a bare ma- 
jority of the judges, and they not quite agreeing with 
one another in the reasons for making it; that it is so 
made as that its avowed supporters disagree with one 
another about its meaning, and that it. was mainly 
based upon a mistaken statement of fact — the state- 
ment in the opinion that “the right of property in a 
slave is distinctly and expressly affirmed in the Consti- 
tution.” 

An inspection of the Constitution will show that the 
right of property in a slave is not “distinctly and ex- 
pressly affirmed” in it. Bear in mind, the judges do 
not pledge their judicial opinion that such right is im- 
pliedly affirmed in the Constitution; but they pledge 
their veracity that it is “distinctly and expressly”’ af- 
firmed there — “distinctly,” that is, not mingled with 
anything else; “expressly,” that is, in words meaning 
just that, without the aid of any inference, and sus- 
ceptible of no other meaning. 

If they had only pledged their judicial opinion that 
such right is affirmed in the instrument by implication, 


Addresses and Letters 13 


it would be open to others to show that neither the 
word ‘‘slave”’ nor “slavery’’ is to be found in the Con- 
stitution, nor the word “property,” even, ‘in any con- 
nection with language alluding to the things slave or 
slavery ; and that wherever in that instrument the slave 
is alluded to, he is called a “‘person’’; and wherever his 
master’s legal right in relation to him is alluded to, it 
is spoken of as “service or labor which may be due’? — 
as a debt payable in service or labor. Also it would be 
open to show, by contemporaneous history, that this 
mode of alluding to slaves and slavery, instead of speak- 
ing of them, was employed on purpose to exclude from 
the Constitution the idea that there could be property 
in man. 

To show all this is easy and certain. 

When this obvious mistake of the judges shall be 
brought to their notice, is it not reasonable to expect 
that they will withdraw the mistaken statement, and 
reconsider the conclusion based upon it? 

And then it is to be remembered that ‘our fathers 
who framed the government under which we live”? — 
the men who made the Constitution — decided this 
same constitutional question in our favor long ago; 
decided it without division among themselves when 
making the decision; without division among them- 
selves about the meaning of it after it was made, and, 
so far as any evidence is left, without basing it upon 
any mistaken statement of facts. 

Under all these circumstances, do you really feel 
yourselves justified to break up this government un- 
less such a court decision as yours is shall be at once 
submitted to as a conclusive and final rule of political 


134 Abraham Lincoln 


action? But you will not abide the election of a Repub- 
lican President! In that supposed event, you say, you 
will destroy the Union; and then, you say, the great 
crime of having destroyed it will be upon us! That is 
cool. A highwayman holds a pistol to my ear, and 
mutters through his teeth, “Stand and deliver, or I 
shall kill you, and then you will be a murderer !”’ 

To be sure, what the robber demanded of me — my 
money — was my own; and I had a clear right to keep 
it; but it was no more my own than my vote is my 
own; and the threat of death to me, to extort my 
money, and the threat of destruction to the Union, to 
extort my vote, can scarcely be distinguished in prin- 
ciple. 

A few words now to Republicans. It is exceedingly 
desirable that all parts of this great Confederacy shall 
be at peace, and in harmony one with another. Let us 
Republicans do our part to have it so. Even though 
much provoked, let us do nothing through passion and 
ill temper. Even though the Southern people will not 
so much as listen to us, let us calmly consider their 
demands, and yield to them if, in our deliberate view 
of our duty, we possibly can. Judging by all they say 
and do, and by the subject and nature of their contro- 
versy with us, let us determine, if we can, what will 
satisfy them. 

Will they be satisfied if the Territories be uncondi- 
tionally surrendered to them’? We know they will not. 
In all their present complaints against us, the Terri- 
tories are scarcely mentioned. Invasions and insur- 
rections are the rage now. Will it satisfy them if, in 
the future, we have nothing to do with invasions and 


Addresses and Letters 135 


insurrections? We know it will not. We so know, 
because we know we never had anything to do with 
invasions and insurrections; and yet this total abstain- 
ing does not exempt us from the charge and the denun- 
ciation. 

The question recurs, What will satisfy them? Simply 
this: we must not only let them alone, but we must 
somehow convince them we do let them alone. This, 
we know by experience, is no easy task. We have 
been so trying to convince them from the very begin- 
ning of our organization, but with no success. In all 
our platforms and speeches we have constantly pro- 
tested our purpose to let them alone; but this has had 
no tendency to convince them. Alike unavailing to 
convince them is the fact that they have never de- 
tected a man of us in any attempt to disturb them. 

These natural and apparently adequate means all 
failing, what will convince them? This, and this only: 
cease to call slavery wrong, and join them in calling it 
right. And this must be done thoroughly — done in 
acts as well as in words. Silence will not be tolerated 
— we must place ourselves avowedly with them. Sen- 
ator Douglas’s new sedition law must be enacted and 
enforced, suppressing all declarations that slavery is 
wrong, whether made in politics, in presses, in pulpits, 
or in private. We must arrest and return their fugi- 
tive slaves with greedy pleasure. We must pull down 
our Free-State constitutions. The whole atmosphere 
must be disinfected from all taint of opposition to 
slavery, before they will cease to believe that all their 
troubles proceed from us. 

I am quite aware they do not state their case pre- 


136 Abraham Lincoln 


cisely in this way. Most of them would probably say 
to us, ‘Let us alone; do nothing to us, and say what 
you please about slavery.’’ But we do let them alone, 
— have never disturbed them, — so that, after all, it is 
what we say which dissatisfies them. They will con- 
tinue to accuse us of doing, until we cease saying. 

I am also aware they have not as yet in terms de- 
manded the overthrow of our Free-State constitutions. 
Yet those constitutions declare the wrong of slavery 
with more solemn emphasis than do all other sayings 
against it; and when all these other sayings shall have 
been silenced, the overthrow of these constitutions will 
be demanded, and nothing be left to resist the demand. 
It is nothing to the contrary that they do not demand 
the whole of this just now. Demanding what they do, 
and for the reason they do, they can voluntarily stop 
nowhere short of this consummation. Holding, as 
they do, that slavery is morally right and socially ele- 
vating, they cannot cease to demand a full national 
recognition of it as a legal right and a social blessing. 

Nor can we justifiably withhold this on any ground 
save our conviction that slavery is wrong. If slavery 
is right, all words, acts, laws, and constitutions against 
it are themselves wrong, and should be silenced and 
swept away. If it is right, we cannot justly object to 
its nationality —its universality; if it is wrong they 
cannot justly insist upon its extension — its enlarge- 
ment. All they ask we could readily grant, if we 
thought slavery right; all we ask they could as readily 
grant, if they thought it wrong. Their thinking it 
-right and our thinking it wrong is the precise fact upon 
which depends the whole controversy. Thinking it 


Addresses and Letters 137 


right, as they do, they are not to blame for desiring 
its full recognition as being right; but thinking it 
wrong, as we do, can we yield to them? Can we cast 
our votes with their view, and against our own? In 
view of our moral, social, and political responsibilities, 
can we do this? 

Wrong as we think slavery is, we can eet afford to let 
it alone where it is, because that much is due to the 
necessity arising from its actual presence in the nation ; 
but can we, while our votes will prevent it, allow it to 
spread into the national Territories, and to overrun us 
here in these free States? If our sense of duty forbids 
this, then let us stand by our duty fearlessly and effec- 
tively. Let us be diverted by none of those sophistical 
contrivances wherewith we are so industriously plied 
and belabored, — contrivances such as groping for 
some middle ground between the right and the wrong, 
vain as the search for a man who should be neither a 
living man nor a dead man; such as a policy of “don’t 
care,’ on a question about which all true men do care ; 
such as Union appeals beseeching true Union men to 
yield to Disunionists, reversing the Divine rule, and 
calling not the sinners, but the righteous to repent- 
ance; such as invocations to Washington, imploring 
men to unsay what Washington said, and undo what 
Washington did. 

Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false 
accusations against us, nor frightened from it by men- 
aces of destruction to the government, nor of dungeons 
to ourselves. Let us have faith that right makes might, 
and in that faith let us to the end dare to do our duty 
as we understand it. 


138 Abraham Lincoln 


Letter to Thurlow Weed 


In the trying time between his election and inauguration 
Lincoln was beset by requests to state his policy. This 
letter is a typical reply. Thurlow Weed was the leader of 
the Republican organization in the state of New York and 
the supporter of William H. Seward. 


Springfield, Ill., December 17, 1860 
Thurlow Weed, Esq. 

My pEAR Sir: Yours of the 11th was received two 
days ago. Should the convocation of governors of 
which you speak seem desirous to know my views on the 
present aspect of things, tell them you judge from my 
speeches that I will be inflexible on the territorial ques- 
tion; that I probably think either the Missouri line 
extended, or Douglas’s and Eli Thayer’s popular sover- 
eignty, would lose us everything we gain by the elec- 
tion; that filibustering for all south of us and making 
slave states of it would follow, in spite of us, in either 
case; also that I probably think all opposition, real 
and apparent, to the fugitive-slave clause of the Con- 
stitution ought to be withdrawn. 

I believe you can pretend to find but little, if any- 
thing, in my speeches about secession. But my opinion 
is that no state can in any way lawfully get out of the 
Union without the consent of the others; and that it 
is the duty of the President and other government 
functionaries to run the machine as it is. 

Truly yours, 
A. LINCOLN 


Addresses and Letters 139 


Farewell Address at Springfield 


From the time he was nominated in May, 1860, until he 
left Springfield the following February to begin his journey 
to Washington, Lincoln preserved an almost complete si- 
lence. When asked to state his views, he pointed to the 
speeches he had already delivered. Meanwhile, because 
Buchanan was irresolute, and the Southern leaders aggres- 
sive, the nation was in a condition bordering on chaos. No 
one realized more than Lincoln the seriousness of the task to 
which he was ealled. This farewell to his neighbors was 
delivered from the rear platform of his train, in a drizzling 
rain, just before he began his journey to his inauguration. 


[February 11, 1861] 


My Frienps: No one, not in my situation, can 
appreciate my feeling of sadness at this parting. To 
this place, and the kindness of these people, I owe 
everything. Here I have lived a quarter of a century, 
and have passed from a young toanold man. Here my 
children have been born, and one is buried. / I now 
leave, not knowing when or whether ever I may return, 
with a task before me greater than that which rested 
upon Washington. Without the assistance of that 
Divine Being who ever attended him, I cannot succeed. 
With that assistance, I cannot fail.’ Trusting in Him 
who can go with me, and remain with you, and be 
everywhere for good, let us confidently hope that all 
will yet be well.) To His care commending you, as i 
hope in your prayers you will commend me, I bid you 
an affectionate farewell. 


140 Abraham Lincoln 


Address in Independence Hall, Philadelphia 


As he proceeded on his journey, Lincoln stopped long 
enough at Indianapolis, Columbus, Cleveland, Buffalo, 
Utica, Albany, New York, Trenton, Philadelphia, and at many 
smaller places to speak to crowds. He was as anxious to 
meet the people as they were to see him. Getting nearer 
to the Capitol, he was warned of plots against his life. These 
were ferreted out by the Government detectives, who were 
convineed that plans had been carefully made to assassinate 
the President-elect before he could reach Washington. In 
fact Lincoln was well aware of the plots when he delivered 
this speech. 


[February 22, 1861] 


I am filled with deep emotion at finding myself 
standing in this place, where were collected together the 
wisdom, the patriotism, the devotion to principle, from 
which sprang the institutions under which we live. 
You have kindly suggested to me that in my hands is 
the task of restoring peace to our distracted country. 
I can say in return, sir, that all the political sentiments 
I entertain have been drawn, so far as I have been able 
to draw them, from the sentiments which originated in 
and were given to the world from this hall. I have 
never had a feeling, politically, that did not spring from 
the sentiments embodied in the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence. I have often pondered over the dangers 
which were incurred by the men who assembled here and 
framed and adopted that Declaration. Ihave pondered 
over the toils that were endured by the officers and 
soldiers of the army who achieved that independence. 
I have often inquired of myself what great principle or 


Addresses and Letters 141 


idea it was that kept this Confederacy so long together. 
It was not the mere matter of separation of the colonies 
from the motherland, but that sentiment in the Dec- 
laration of Independence which gave liberty not alone 
to the people of this country, but hope to all the world, 
for all future time. It was that which gave promise 
that in due time the weights would be lifted from the 
shoulders of all men, and that all should have an equal 
chance. This is the sentiment embodied in the Dec- 
laration of Independence. Now, my friends, can this 
country be saved on that basis? If it can, I will con- 
sider myself one of the happiest men in the world if I 
can help to save it. If it cannot be saved upon that 
principle, it will be truly awful. But if this country 
cannot be saved without giving up that principle, I was 
about to say I would rather be assassinated on this 
spot than surrender it. Now, in my view of the present 
aspect of affairs, there is no need of bloodshed and war. 
There is no necessity for it. I am not in favor of such 
a course; and I may say in advance that there will be 
no bloodshed unless it is forced upon the government. 
The government will not use force, unless force is used 
against it. 

My friends, this is wholly an unprepared speech. 
I did not expect to be called on to say a word when I 
came here. I supposed I was merely to do something 
toward raising a flag. I may, therefore, have said 
something indiscreet. [Cries of ‘‘No, no.’’] But I 
have said nothing but what I am willing to live by, and, 
if it be the pleasure of Almighty God, to die by. 


142 Abraham Lincoln 


First Inaugural Address 


By the time he reached Baltimore, Lincoln was persuaded 
by General Scott and others that the plan to assassinate him 
was so thoroughly arranged that to pass through the city 
by day would be sheer folly. He therefore changed his plans, 
passed through Baltimore at night and arrived in Washington 
safely, and was peacefully inaugurated — General Scott had, 
of course, stationed sufficient infantry and artillery for any 
emergency —on the fourth of March, 1861. Beside him 
sat Senator Douglas, who took this opportunity to show his 
followers that he was determined to support the President. 
Lineoln had earefully prepared his speech the month before 
he left Springfield. His guides were the Constitution, Henry 
Clay’s speech in favor of the Compromise of 1850, President 
Jackson’s proclamation of 1833 against nullification in South 
Carolina, and Webster’s reply to Hayne in 1830. In spite of 
his efforts to allay the anxiety the South had expressed as to his 
attitude, Southern newspapers hailed the speech as a dec- 
laration of war. On the other hand, the lack of passion in his 
expression was a keen disappointment to many extremists in 
the North. 


[March 4, 1861] 


FELLOW-CITIZENS OF THE UNITED States: In compli- 
ance with a custom as old as the government itself, I 
appear before you to address you briefly, and to take 
in your presence the oath prescribed by the Constitution 
of the United States to be taken by the President 
“before he enters on the execution of his office.” 

I do not consider it necessary at present for me to 
discuss those matters of administration about which 
there is no special anxiety or excitement. 

Apprehension seems to exist among the people of the 
Southern States that by the accession of a Republican 


Boston. 


Photo by Curtis and Cameron 
StaTuE oF LIncoLN By Avacustus SaInt-GAuDENS, LINCOLN 


Park, CHICAGO. 


7 


— ‘i 


7 


aa 
= 
Ui 


Addresses and Letters 143 


administration their property and their peace and per- 
sonal security are to be endangered. There has never 
been any reasonable cause for such apprehension. In- 
deed, the most ample evidence to the contrary has all 
the while existed and been open to their inspection. 
It is found in nearly all the published speeches of him 
who now addresses you. I do but quote from one of 
those speeches when I declare that “I have no purpose, 
directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution 
of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I 
have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination 
to do so.”” Those who nominated and elected me did 
so with full knowledge that I had made this and many 
similar declarations, and had never recanted them. 
And, more than this, they placed in the platform for my 
acceptance, and as a law to themselves and to me, the 
clear and emphatic resolution which I now read : — 
“Resolved, That the maintenance inviolate of the 
rights of the States, and especially the right of each 
State to order and control its own domestic institu- 
tions according to its own judgment exclusively, is 
essential to that balance of power on which the per- 
fection and endurance of our political fabric depend, 
and we denounce the lawless invasion by armed force of 
the soil of any State or Territory, no matter under what 
pretext, as among the gravest of crimes.” I now 
reiterate these sentiments; and, in doing so, I only press 
upon the public attention the most conclusive evidence 
of which the case is susceptible, that the property, 
peace, and security of no section are to be in any wise 
endangered by the now incoming administration. I 
add, too, that all the protection which, consistently 


144 Abraham Lincoln 


with the Constitution and the laws, can be given, will be 
cheerfully given to all the States when lawfully de- 
manded, for whatever cause — as cheerfully to one sec- 
tion as to another. 

There is much controversy about the delivering up 
of fugitives from service or labor. The clause I now 
read is as plainly written in the Constitution as any 
other of its provisions : — 

““No person held to service or labour in one State, 
under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall in 
consequence of any law or regulation therein be dis- 
charged from such service or labour, but shall be de- 
livered up on claim of the party to whom such service or 
labour may be due.” 

It is scarcely questioned that this provision was in- 
tended by those who made it for the reclaiming of what 
we call fugitive slaves; and the intention of the law- 
giver 1s the law. All members of Congress swear their 
support to the whole Constitution — to this provision 
as much as to any other. To the proposition, then, 
that slaves whose cases come within the terms of this 
clause “‘shall be delivered up,” their oaths are unani- 
mous. Now, if they would make the effort in good 
temper, could they not with nearly equal unanimity 
frame and pass a law by means of which to keep good 
that unanimous oath? 

There is some difference of opinion whether this 
clause should be enforced by national or by State au- 
thority ; but surely that difference is not a very ma- 
terial one. If the slave is to be surrendered, it can be of 
but little consequence to him or to others by which 
authority it is done. And should any one in any case 


Addresses and Letters 145 


be content that his oath shall go unkept on a merely 
unsubstantial controversy as to how it shall be kept? 

Again, in any law upon this subject, ought not all the 
safeguards of liberty known in civilized and humane 
jurisprudence to be introduced, so that a free man be 
not, in any case, surrendered as a slave? And might it 
not be well at the same time to provide by law for the 
enforcement of that clause in the Constitution which 
guarantees that “the citizens of each State shall be en- 
titled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the 
several States’? 

I take the official oath to-day with no mental reserva- 
tions, and with no purpose to construe the Constitu- 
tion or laws by any hypercritical rules. And while I do 
not choose now to specify particular acts of Congress 
as proper to be enforced, I do suggest that it will be 
much safer for all, both in official and private stations, 
to conform to and abide by all those acts which stand 
unrepealed, than to violate any of them, trusting to 
find impunity in having them held to be unconstitu- 
tional. 

It is seventy-two years since the first inauguration 
of a President under our National Constitution. Dur- 
ing that period fifteen different and greatly distin- 
guished citizens have, in succession, administered the 
executive branch of the government. They have con- 
ducted it through many perils, and generally with 
great success. Yet, with all this scope of precedent, I 
now enter upon the same task for the brief constitu- 
tional term of four years under great and peculiar 
difficulty. A disruption of the Federal Union, hereto- 
fore only menaced, is now formidably attempted. 


146 Abraham Lincoln 


I hold that, in contemplation of universal law and 
of the Constitution, the Union of these States is per- 
petual. Perpetuity is implied, if not expressed, in the 
fundamental law of all national governments. It is 
safe to assert that no government proper ever had a 
provision in its organic law for its own termination. 
Continue to execute all the express provisions of our 
National Constitution, and the Union will endure for- 
ever — it being impossible to destroy it except by some 
action not provided for in the instrument itself. 

Again, if the United States be not a government 
proper, but an association of States in the nature of 
contract merely, can it, as a contract, be peaceably 
unmade by less than all the parties who made it? 
One party to a contract may violate it — break it, 
so to speak; but does it not require all to lawfully 
rescind it? 

Descending from these general principles, we find the 
proposition that in legal contemplation the Union is 
perpetual confirmed by the history of the Union itself. 
The Union is much older than the Constitution. It 
was formed, in fact, by the Articles of Association in 
1774. It was matured and continued by the Declara- 
tion of Independence in 1776. It was further matured, 
and the faith of all the then thirteen States expressly 
plighted and engaged that it should be perpetual, by 
the Articles of Confederation in 1778. And, finally, in 
1787 one of the declared objects for ordaining and es- 
tablishing the Constitution was ‘‘to form a more per- 
fect Union.” 

But if the destruction of the Union by one or by a 
part only of the States be lawfully possible, the Union 


Addresses and Letters 147 


is less perfect than before the Constitution, having 
lost the vital element of perpetuity. 

It follows from these views that no State upon its 
own mere motion can lawfully get out of the Union; 
that resolves and ordinances to that effect are legally 
void; and that acts of violence, within any State or 
States, against the authority of the United States, are 
insurrectionary or revolutionary, according to cir- 
cumstances. 

I therefore consider that, in view of the Constitution 
and the laws, the Union is unbroken; and to the extent 
of my ability I shall take care, as the Constitution itself 
expressly enjoins upon me, that the laws of the Union 
be faithfully executed in all the States. Doing this I 
deem to be only a simple duty on my part; and I shall 
perform it so far as practicable, unless my rightful 
masters, the American people, shall withhold the req- 
uisite means, or in some authoritative manner direct 
the contrary. I trust this will not be regarded as a 
menace, but only as the declared purpose of the Union 
that it will constitutionally defend and maintain it- 
self. 

In doing this there needs to be no bloodshed or vio- 
lence; and there shall be none, unless it be forced upon 
the national authority. The power confided to me 
will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property 
and places belonging to the government, and to collect 
the duties and imposts ; but beyond what may be neces- 
sary for these objects, there will be no invasion, no 
using of force against or among the people anywhere. 
Where hostility to the United States, in any interior 
locality, shall be so great and universal as to prevent 


148 Abraham Lincoln 


competent resident citizens from holding the Federal 
offices, there will be no attempt to force obnoxious 
strangers among the people for that object. While the 
strict legal right may exist in the government to enforce 
the exercise of these officers, the attempt to do so would 
be so irritating, and so nearly impracticable withal, that 
I deem it better to forego for the time the uses of such 
officers. 

The mails, unless repelled, will continue to be fur- 
nished in all parts of the Union. So far as possible, 
the people everywhere shall have that sense of per- 
fect security which is most favorable to calm thought 
and reflection. The course here indicated will be fol- 
lowed unless current events and experience shall show a 
modification or change to be proper, and in every case 
and exigency my best discretion will be exercised ac- 
cording to circumstances actually existing, and with a 
view and a hope of a peaceful solution of the national 
troubles andthe restoration of fraternal sympathies 
and affections. 

That there are persons in one section or another who 
seek to destroy the Union at all events, and are glad of 
any pretext to do it, I will neither affirm nor deny; but 
if there be such, I need address no word to them. To 
those, however, who really love the Union may I not 
speak? 

Before entering upon so grave a matter as the de- 
struction of our national fabric, with all its benefits, its 
memories, and its hopes, would it not be wise to as- 
certain precisely why we do it? Will you hazard so 
desperate a step while there is any possibility that any 
portion of the ills you fly from have no real existence? 


Addresses and Letters 149 


Will you, while the certain ills you fly to are greater 
than all the real ones you fly from — will you risk the 
commission of so fearful a mistake? 

All profess to be content in the Union if all consti- 
tutional rights can be maintained. Is it true, then, 
that any right, plainly written in the Constitution, has 
been denied? I think not. Happily the human mind 
is so constituted that no party can reach to the audacity 
of doing this. Think, if you can, of a single instance in 
which a plainly written provision of the Constitution has 
ever been denied. If by the mere force of numbers a 
majority should deprive a minority of any clearly writ- 
ten constitutional right, it might, in a moral point of 
view, justify revolution — certainly would if such a 
right were a vital one. But such is not our case. All 
the vital rights of minorities and of individuals are so 
plainly assured to them by affirmations and negations, 
guaranties and prohibitions, in the Constitution, that 
controversies never arise concerning them. But no or- 
ganic law can ever be framed with a provision specifi- 
cally applicable to every question which may occur 
in practical administration. No foresight can antici- 
pate, nor any document of reasonable length contain, 
express provisions for all possible questions. Shall 
fugitives from labor be surrendered by national or by 
State authority? The Constitution does not expressly 
say. May Congress prohibit slavery in the Territories? 
The Constitution does not expressly say. Must Con- 
gress protect slavery in the Territories? The Con- 
stitution does not expressly say. 

From questions of this class spring all our constitu- 
tional controversies, and we divide upon them into 


150 Abraham Lincoln 


majorities and minorities. If the minority will not 
acquiesce, the majority must, or the government must 
cease. There is no other alternative; for continuing 
the government is acquiescence on one side or the other. 

If a minority in such case will secede rather than 
acquiesce, they make a precedent which in turn will 
divide and ruin them; for a minority of their own will 
secede from them whenever a majority refuses to be 
controlled by such minority. For instance, why may 
not any portion of a new confederacy a year or two 
hence arbitrarily secede again, precisely as portions 
of the present Union now claim to secede from it? All 
who cherish disunion sentiments are now being edu- 
cated to the exact temper of doing this. 

Is there such a perfect identity of interest among the 
States to compose a new Union, as to produce harmony 
only, and prevent renewed secession ? 

Plainly, the central idea of secession is the essence of 
anarchy. A majority held in restraint by constitutional 
checks and limitations, and always changing easily 
with deliberate changes of popular opinions and sen- 
timents, is the only true sovereign of a free people. 
Whoever rejects it does, of necessity, fly to anarchy or 
to despotism. Unanimity is impossible; the rule of a 
minority, as a permanent arrangement, is wholly inad- 
missible ; so that, rejecting the majority principle, an- 
archy or despotism in some form is all that is left. 

I do not forget the position, assumed by some, that 
constitutional questions are to be decided by the Su- 
preme Court ; nor do I deny that such decisions must be 
binding, in any case, upon the parties to a suit, as to 
the object of that suit, while they are also entitled to 


Addresses and Letters ISI 


very high respect and consideration in all parallel cases 
by all other departments of the government. And 
while it is obviously possible that such decision may 
be erroneous in any given case, still the evil effect fol- 
lowing it, being limited to that particular case, with the 
chance that it may be overruled and never become a 
precedent for other cases, can better be borne than 
could the evils of a different practice. At the same 
time, the candid citizen must confess that if the policy 
of the government, upon vital questions affecting the 
whole people, is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of 
the Supreme Court, the instant they are made, in ordi- 
nary litigation between parties in personal actions, the 
people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having 
to that extent practically resigned their government 
into the hands of that eminent tribunal. Nor is there 
in this view any assault upon the court or the judges. 
It is a duty from which they may not shrink to decide 
cases properly brought before them and it is no fault 
of theirs if others seek to turn their decisions to political 
purposes. 

One section of our country believes slavery is right, 
and ought to be extended, while the other believes it is 
wrong, and ought not to be extended. This is the only 
substantial dispute. The fugitive-slave clause of the 
Constitution, and the law for the suppression of the 
foreign slave trade, are each as well enforced, perhaps, 
as any law can ever be in a community where the moral 
sense of the people imperfectly supports the law itself. 
The great body of the people abide by the dry legal 
obligation in both cases, and a few break over in each. 
This, I think, cannot be perfectly cured; and it would 


152 Abraham Lincoln 


be worse in both cases after the separation of the 
sections than before. The foreign slave trade, now 
imperfectly suppressed, would be ultimately revived, 
without restriction, in one section, while fugitive slaves, 
now only partially surrendered, would not be sur- 
rendered at all by the other. 

Physically speaking, we cannot separate. We can- 
not remove our respective sections from each other, nor 
build an impassable wall between them. A husband 
and wife may be divorced, and go out of the presence 
and beyond the reach of each other; but the different 
parts of our country cannot do this. They cannot but 
remain face to face, and intercourse, either amicable 
or hostile, must continue between them. Is it possible, 
then, to make that intercourse more advantageous or 
more satisfactory after separation than before? Can 
aliens make treaties easier than friends can make laws? 
Can treaties be more faithfully enforced between aliens 
than laws can among friends? Suppose you go to war, 
you cannot fight always; and when, after much loss on 
both sides, and no gain on either, you cease fighting, 
the identical old questions as to terms of intercourse 
are again upon you. 

This country, with its institutions, belongs to the 
people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow 
weary of the existing government, they can exercise their 
constitutional right of amending it, or their revolution- 
ary right to dismember or overthrow it. I cannot be 
ignorant of the fact that many worthy and patriotic 
citizens are desirous of having the National Constitu- 
tion amended. While I make no recommendation of 
amendments, I fully recognize the rightful authority 


Addresses and Letters 153 


of the people over the whole subject, to be exercised 
in either of the modes prescribed in the instrument it- 
self; and I should, under existing circumstances, fa- 
vor rather than oppose a fair opportunity being af- 
forded the people to act upon it. I will venture to add 
that to me the convention mode seems preferable, in 
that it allows amendments to originate with the people 
. themselves, instead of only permitting them to take or 
reject propositions originated by others not especially 
chosen for the purpose, and which might not be pre- 
cisely such as they would wish to either accept or re- 
fuse. I understand a proposed amendment to the 
Constitution — which amendment, however, I have not 
seen — has passed Congress, to the effect that the Fed- 
eral Government shall never interfere with the domestic 
institutions of the States, including that of persons held 
to service. To avoid misconstruction of what I have 
said, I depart from my purpose not to speak of par- 
ticular amendments so far as to say that, holding such 
a provision to now be implied constitutional law, I 
have no objection to its being made express and ir- 
revocable. 

The chief magistrate derives all his authority from 
the people, and they have conferred none upon him 
to fix terms for the separation of the States. The 
people themselves can do this also if they choose; but 
the Executive, as such, has nothing to do with it. His 
duty is to administer the present government, as it 
came to his hands, and to transmit it, unimpaired by 
him, to his successor. 

Why should there not be a patient confidence in the 
ultimate justice of the people? Is there any better or 


154 Abraham Lincoln 


equal hope in the world? In our present differences, is 
either party without faith of being in the right? If the 
Almighty Ruler of Nations, with His eternal truth and 
justice, be on your side of the North, or on yours of the 
South, that truth and that justice will surely prevail by 
the judgment of this great tribunal of the American 
people. 

By the frame of the government under which we live, 
this same people have wisely given their public servants 
but little power for mischief ; and have, with equal wis- 
dom, provided for the return of that little to their own 
hands at very short intervals. While the people retain 
their virtue and vigilance, no administration, by any 
extreme of wickedness or folly, can very seriously in- 
jure the government in the short space of four years. 

My countrymen, one and all, think calmly and well 
upon this whole subject. Nothing valuable can be lost 
by taking time. If there be an object to hurry any of 
you in hot haste to a step which you would never take 
deliberately, that object will be frustrated by taking 
time ; but no good object can be frustrated by it. Such 
of you as are now dissatisfied still have the old Consti- 
tution unimpaired, and, on the sensitive point, the laws 
of your own framing under it; while the new adminis- 
tration will have no immediate power, if it would, to 
change either. If it were admitted that you who are 
dissatisfied hold the right side in the dispute, there 
still is no single good reason for precipitate action. 
Intelligence, patriotism, Christianity, and a firm re- 
liance on Him who has never yet forsaken this favored 
land, are still competent to adjust in the best way all 
our present difficulty. 


Addresses and Letters itis 


In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, 
and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. 
The government will not assail you. You can have no 
conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You 
have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the govern- 
ment, while I shall have the most solemn one to “ pre- 
serve, protect, and defend it.” 

I am loath to close. Weare not enemies, but friends. | 
We must not be enemies. ‘Though passion may have 
strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The 
mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle- 
field and patriot grave to every living heart and hearth- 
stone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus 
of the Union when again touched, as surely they will 
be, by the better angels of our nature. 


Lincoln’s Reply to Secretary Seward 


Washington politicians had little confidence that the new 
president would prove able to command the difficult situation 
caused by secession. Secretary of State Seward shared this 
opinion of Lincoln and on April 1, less than four weeks after 
the inauguration, submitted a paper which he called Some 
Thoughts for the President’s Consideration. The paper read : 

‘First. Weare at the end of a month’s administration, and 
yet without a policy either domestic or foreign. 

‘Second. This, however, is not culpable, and it has even 
been unavoidable. The presence of the Senate, with the need 
to meet applications for patronage, have prevented attention 
to other and more grave matters. 

‘“Third. But further delay to adopt and prosecute our 
policies for both domestic and foreign affairs would not only 
bring scandal on the administration, but danger upon the 
country. 

‘*Fourth. To do this we must dismiss the applicants for 


156 Abraham Lincoln 


office. But how? I suggest that we make the local appoint- 
ments forthwith, leaving foreign or general ones for ulterior 
and occasional action. 

‘Fifth. Thepolicyathome. Iam aware that my views are 
singular, and perhaps not sufficiently explained. My system 
is built upon this idea as a ruling one, namely, that we must 

‘Change the question before the public from one upon slavery, 
or about slavery, for a question upon union or disunion: 

‘‘In other words, from what would be regarded as a party 
question, to one of patriotism or union. 

‘““The occupation or evacuation of Fort Sumter, although 
not in fact a slavery or a party question, is so regarded. Wit- 
ness the temper manifested by the Republicans in the free 
states, and even by the Union men in the South. 

‘‘T would therefore terminate it as a safe means for chang- 
ing the issue. I deem it fortunate that the last administra- 
tion created the necessity. 

‘For the rest, I would simultaneously defend and reén- 
force all the ports in the gulf, and have the navy recalled from 
foreign stations to be prepared for a blockade. Put the island 
of Key West under martial law. 

‘“This will raise distinctly the question of union or disunion. 
I would maintain every fort and possession in the South. 


For Foreign Nations 


‘‘T would demand explanations from Spain and Franee, 
eategorically, at once. 

‘*T would seek explanations from Great Britain and Russia, 
and send agents into Canada, Mexico, and Central America to 
rouse a vigorous continental spirit of independence on this 
continent against European intervention. 

‘‘And, if satisfactory explanations are not received from 
Spain and France, would convene Congress and declare war 
against them. 

‘‘But whatever policy we adopt, there must be energetic 
prosecution of it. 

‘For this purpose it must be somebody’s business to pursue 
and direct it incessantly. 


Addresses and Letters Les 


‘*Hither the President must do it himself, and be all the 
while active in it, or 

‘*Devolve it on some member of his Cabinet. Once adopted, 
debates on it must end, and all agree and abide. It is not 
in my especial province. But I neither seek to evade nor to 
assume responsibility.” 

The same day Lincoln replied in this letter. It settled 
finally the question of who was to be the head of the nation. 
It is remarkable for the calmness with which the insane foreign 
policy of Seward is put aside. Some weeks later Seward 
wrote: ‘‘There is but one vote in the Cabinet, and that is 
cast by the President.’’ No one but Seward’s son and the 
President’s secretary knew of this incident; Lincoln had no 
wish for a public humiliation of his Secretary of State. 


Executive Mansion, April 1, 1861 
Hon, W. H. Seward. 

My Dear Sir: Since parting with you I have been 
considering your paper dated this day, and entitled 
“Some Thoughts for the President’s Consideration.” 
The first proposition in it is, ‘‘ First, We are at the end 
of a month’s administration, and yet without a policy 
- either domestic or foreign.” 

At the beginning of that month, in the inaugural, I 
said: ‘‘The power confided to me will be used to hold, 
occupy, and possess the property and places belonging 
to the government, and to collect the duties and 
imposts.”’ This had your distinct approval at the 
time; and, taken in connection with the order I im- 
mediately gave General Scott, directing him to employ 
every means in his power to strengthen and hold the 
forts, comprises the exact domestic policy you now urge, 
with the single exception that it does not propose to 
abandon Fort Sumter. 


158 Abraham Lincoln 


Again, I do not perceive how the reénforcement of 
Fort Sumter would be done on a slavery or a party issue, 
while that of Fort Pickens would be on a more national 
and patriotic one. 

The news received yesterday in regard to St. Domingo 
certainly brings a new item within the range of our 
foreign policy ; but up to that time we have been pre- 
paring circulars and instructions to ministers and the 
like, all in perfect harmony, without even a suggestion 
that we had no foreign policy. 

Upon your closing propositions — that “whatever 
policy we adopt, there must be an energetic prosecution 
Olelts 

“For this purpose it must be somebody’s business to 
pursue and direct it incessantly.” 

“Hither the President must do it himself, and be all 
the while active in it, or 

“Devolve it on some member of his cabinet. Once 
adopted, debates on it must end, and all agree and 
abide’’ — I remark that if this must be done, I must do 
it. When a general line of policy is adopted, I appre- 
hend there is no danger of its being changed without 
good reason, or continuing to be a subject of unneces- 
sary debate; still, upon points arising in its progress I 
wish, and suppose I am entitled to have, the advice of 
all the cabinet. ; 

Your obedient servant, 
A. LINCOLN 


Letter to Reverdy Johnson 


The hostility that Maryland showed toward the troops 
that were marching to Washington in response to Lincoln’s 


Addresses and Letters 159 


eall for 75,000 militia, made one of the most difficult prob- 
lems at the beginning of the war. The city of Baltimore, 
in the hands of Southern partisans, mobbed the Sixth Mas- 
sachusetts, and the soldiers fired upon the mob. The Gov- 
ernor telegraphed Lincoln, ‘‘The excitement is fearful. 
Send no more troops here.’ Finally, arrangements were 
made to send the regiments arownd and not through the city. 
Reverdy Johnson was a prominent citizen of Maryland, and 
afterwards a United States Senator from his state. 


Executive Mansion, April 24, 1861 

Hon. Reverdy Johnson. 
My pear Sir: Your note of this morning is just 
received. Iforbore to answer yours of the 22d because 
_of my aversion (which I thought you understood) to get- 
ting on paper and furnishing new grounds for misunder- 
standing. I do say the sole purpose of bringing troops 
here is to defend this capital. I do say I have no pur- 
pose to invade Virginia with them or any other troops, 
as I understand the word invasion. But, suppose 
Virginia sends her troops, or admits others through her 
borders, to assail this capital, am I not to repel them 
even to the crossing of the Potomac, if I can? Suppose 
Virginia erects, or permits to be erected, batteries on 
the opposite shore to bombard the city, are we to stand 
still and see it done? In a word, if Virginia strikes us, 
are we not to strike back, and as effectively as we can? 
Again, are we not to hold Fort Monroe (for instance) if 
we can? I have no objection to declare a thousand 
times that I have no purpose to invade Virginia or any 
other state, but I do not mean to let them invade us 


without striking back. Yours truly, 


A. LINCOLN 


160 Abraham Lincoln 


Letter to Major Ramsey 


During the early stages of the war Lincoln had an abun- 
dance of people who would like to have been major-generals, 
but few who resembled this woman’s sons. 


October 17, 1861 

My pear Sir: The lady bearer of this says she has 
two sons who want to work. Set them at it if possible. 
Wanting to work is so rare a want that it should be 


encouraged. Yours truly, 


A. LINCOLN 


Letter to O. H. Browning 


General Frémont — the Republican nominee for president 
in 1856 — was at this time commanding officer in the West- 
ern Department. He issued, without consulting Lincoln, 
an emancipation proclamation. Without censure, Lincoln 
asked him to revoke it, and upon his failure to do so Lincoln 
himself revoked it. O. H. Browning was a Republican 
member of the Senate who had been elected to fill the vacancy 
eaused by the death of Stephen A. Douglas. He was a strong 
supporter of the President. Nevertheless, he was one of 
those who wished to see Frémont made important in the war. 
The letter is notable for the indication Lincoln gives that 
despite all the tumult he will not abandon Constitutional 
government. About a month later, Frémont, who had given 
conclusive proof of incompetence, was relieved of his com- 
mand. 


[Private and Confidential] 


Executive Mansion, 


Washington, September 22, 1861 
Hon. O. H. Browning. 


My pkar Sir: Yours of the 17th is just received ; 
and coming from you, I confess it astonishes me. That 


Addresses and Letters 161 


you should object to my adhering to a law which you 
had assisted in making and presenting to me less than 
a month before is odd enough. But this is a very small 
part. General Frémont’s proclamation as to con- 
fiscation of property and the liberation of slaves is 
purely political and not within the range of military 
law or necessity. If a commanding general finds a 
necessity to seize the farm of a private owner for a 
pasture, an encampment, or a fortification, he has the 
right to do so, and to so hold it as long as the necessity 
lasts; and this is within military law, because within 
military necessity. But to say the farm shall no longer 
belong to the owner, or his heirs forever, and this as 
well when the farm is not needed for military purposes 
as when it is, is purely political, without the savor of 
military law about it. And the same is true of slaves. 
If the general needs them, he can seize them and use 
them; but when the need is past, it is not for him to 
fix their permanent future condition. That must be 
settled according to laws made by lawmakers, and not 
by military proclamations. The proclamation in the 
point in question is simply ‘‘dictatorship.”’ It assumes 
that the general may do anything he pleases — con- 
fiscate the lands and free the slaves of loyal people, as 
well as the disloyal ones. And going the whole figure, 
I have no doubt, would be more popular with some 
thoughtless people than that which has been done! 
But I cannot assume this reckless position, nor allow 
others to assume it on my responsibility. | 
You speak of it as being the only means of saving the 
government. On the contrary, it is itself the surrender 
of the government. Can it be pretended that it is any 


162 Abraham Lincoln 


longer the Government of the United States — any 
government of constitution and laws— wherein a 
general or a president may make permanent rules of 
property by proclamation? I do not say Congress 
might not with propriety pass a law on the point, just 
such as General Frémont proclaimed. I do not say I 
might not, as a member of Congress, vote for it. What 
I object to is, that I, as President, shall expressly or 
impliedly seize and exercise the permanent legislative 
functions of the government. 

So much as to principle. Now as to policy. No 
doubt the thing was popular in some quarters, and 
would have been more so if it had been a general dec- 
laration of emancipation. The Kentucky legislature 
would not budge till that proclamation was modified ; 
and General Anderson telegraphed me that on the news 
of General Frémont having actually issued deeds of 
manumission, a whole company of our volunteers threw 
down their arms and disbanded. I was so assured as 
to think it probable that the very arms we had furnished 
Kentucky would be turned against us. I think to lose 
Kentucky is nearly the same as to lose the whole game. 
Kentucky gone, we cannot hold Missouri, nor, as I 
think, Maryland. These all against us, and the job on 
our hands is too large for us. We would as well consent 
to separation at once, including the surrender of this 
capital. On the contrary, if you will give up your 
restlessness for new positions, and back me manfully on 
the grounds upon which you and other kind friends 
gave me the election and have approved in my public 
documents, we shall go through triumphantly. You 
must not understand I took my course on the proclama- 


Addresses and Letters 163 


tion because of Kentucky. I took the same ground in 
a private letter to General Frémont before I heard 
from Kentucky. 

You think I am inconsistent because I did not also 
forbid General Frémont to shoot men under the procla- 
mation. I understand that part to be within military 
law, but I also think, and so privately wrote General 
Frémont, that it is impolitic in this, that our adversaries 
have the power, and will certainly exercise it, to shoot 
as many of our men as we shoot of theirs. I did not 
say this in the public letter, because it is a subject I 
prefer not to discuss in the hearing of our enemies. 

There has been no thought of removing General Fré- 
mont on any ground connected with his proclamation, 
and if there has been any wish for his removal on any 
ground, our mutual friend Sam. Glover can probably 
tell you what it was. I hope no real necessity for it 
exists on any ground. 

Your friend, as ever, 
A. LINCOLN 


Letter to General Hunter 


General David Hunter had been placed in command of 
the Department of the West to succeed Frémont, in Novem- 
ber just preceding this letter. He was afterwards made 
commanding officer of the Department of the South, in which 
capacity he issued an emancipation proclamation similar to 
Frémont’s, which as in Frémont’s case, Lincoln revoked. 
After Lincoln’s emancipation proclamation, Hunter organized 
negro regiments and was in consequence declared an out- 
law by Jefferson Davis. This letter is one of many that the 
President had to write to his generals before he found men 
big enough to see what was expected of them. 


164 Abraham Lincoln 


Executive Mansion, 

Washington, December 31, 1861 

Dear Srr: Yours of the 23d is received, and I am 
constrained to say it is difficult to answer so ugly a letter 
in good temper. I am, as you intimate, losing much 
of the great confidence I placed in you, not from any 
act or omission of yours touching the public service, 
up to the time you were sent to Leavenworth, but from 
the flood of grumbling dispatches and letters I have 
seen from you since. I knew you were being ordered to 
Leavenworth at the time it was done; and I aver 
that with as tender a regard for your honor and your 
sensibilities as I had for my own, it never occurred to 
me that you were being ‘‘humiliated, insulted, and dis- 
graced !”’ nor have I, up to this day, heard an intima- 
tion that you have been wronged, coming from any one 
but yourself. No one has blamed you for the retrograde 
movement from Springfield, nor for the information you 
gave General Cameron; and this you could readily 
understand, if it were not for your unwarranted as- 
sumption that the ordering you to Leavenworth must 
necessarily have been done as a punishment for some 
fault. I thought then, and think yet, the position 
assigned to you is as responsible, and as honorable, 
as that assigned to Buell—I know that General 
McClellan expected more important results from it. 
My impression is that at the time you were assigned to 
the new Western Department, it had not been deter- 
mined to replace General Sherman in Kentucky; but 
of this I am not certain, because the idea that a com- 
mand in Kentucky was very desirable, and one in the 
farther West undesirable, had never occurred to me. 


Addresses and Letters 165 


You constantly speak of being placed in command of 
only 3000. Now tell me, is this not mere impatience? 
Have you not known all the while that you are to com- 
mand four or five times that many? 

I have been, and am sincerely your friend; and if, 
as such, I dare to make a suggestion, I would say you 
are adopting the best possible way to ruin yourself. 
“Act well your part, there all the honor hes.’? He 
who does something at the head of one regiment, will 
eclipse him who does nothing at the head of a hundred. 

Your friend, as ever, 
A. LINCOLN 


Letter to General George B. McClellan 


General McClellan was the greatest disappointment that 
Lincoln experienced among his generals (see Introduction). 
Summoned from the West after the disaster at Bull Run, 
he organized the Army of the Potomac until it was a splendid 
military organization, but he did nothing with it. He wasted 
all of the autumn and winter of 1861-62 while the Confederate 
flag floated in sight of the capitol. Lincoln at last issued an 
order himself for an advance on February 22. McClellan 
made a counter proposal, and this is Lincoln’s reply. It 
was not until the opposing Confederate force had actually 
retreated that McClellan advanced. Lincoln then removed 
him from his high command of general of all the forces of the 
United States, but retained him as commander of the Army 
of the Potomac (March 11, 1862). 


Executive Mansion, Washington, February 3, 1862 
Major-General McClellan. 
My pEAR Stir: Youand I have distinct and different 
plans for a movement of the Army of the Potomac — 
yours to be down the Chesapeake, up the Rappahannock 


166 Abraham Lincoln 


to Urbana, and across land to the terminus of the rail- 
road on the York River; mine to move directly to a 
point on the railroad southwest of Manassas. 

If you will give me satisfactory answers to the fol- 
lowing questions, I shall gladly yield my plan to yours. 

First. Does not your plan involve a greatly larger 
expenditure of time and money than mine? 

Second. Wherein is a victory more certain by your 
plan than mine? 

Third. Wherein is a victory more valuable by your 
plan than mine? 

Fourth. In fact, would it not be less valuable in 
this, that it would break no great line of the enemy’s 
communications, while mine would? 

Fifth. In case of disaster, would not a retreat be 
more difficult by your plan than mine? 

Yours truly, 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 


Letter to Reverdy Johnson 


| Private] 

In the spring of 1862 the Union generals in the Department 
of the South began to organize negro troops. In one year 
130,000 negroes were added to the forces as soldiers, seamen, 
and laborers. The border states were enraged by this policy, 
but the President determined not to abandon his course. 
The following letter was written during the period of McClel- 
lan’s discouraging Peninsula: campaign. 


Executive Mansion, Washington, July 26, 1862 

Hon. Reverdy Johnson. 
My DEAR Str: Yours of the 16th, by the hand of 
Governor Shepley, is received. It seems the Union 


Addresses and Letters 167 


feeling in Louisiana is being crushed out by the course 
of General Phelps.! Please pardon me for believing 
that is a false pretense. The people of Louisiana — all 
intelligent people everywhere — know full well that I 
never had a wish to touch the foundations of their 
society, or any right of theirs. With perfect knowledge 
of this they forced a necessity upon me to send armies 
among them, and it is their own fault, not mine, that 
they are annoyed by the presence of General Phelps. 
They also know the remedy — know how to be cured of 
General Phelps. Remove the necessity for his presence. 
And might it not be well for them to consider whether 
they have not already had time enough to do this? If 
they can conceive of anything worse than General 
Phelps within my power, would they not better be look- 
ing out for it? They very well know the way to avert 
all this is simply to take their place in the Union upon 
the old terms. If they will not do this, should they not 
receive harder blows rather than lighter ones? You 
are ready to say I apply to friends what is due only to 
enemies. I distrust the wisdom if not the sincerity of 
friends who would hold my hands while my enemies 
stabme. This appeal of professed friends has paralyzed 
me more in this struggle than any other one thing. 
You remember telling me, the day after the Baltimore 
mob in April, 1861, that it would crush all Union feeling 
in Maryland for me to attempt bringing troops over 
Maryland soil to Washington. I brought the troops 
notwithstanding, and yet there was Union feeling enough 
left to elect a legislature the next autumn, which in 


1 General Phelps was recruiting negro troops in Louisiana. 


168 Abraham Lincoln 


turn elected a very excellent Union United States sena- 
tor!! I ama patient man — always willing to forgive 
on the Christian terms of repentance, and also to give 
ample time for repentance. Still, I must save this 
government, if possible. What I cannot do, of course 
I will not do, but it may as well be understood, once 
for all, that I shall not surrender this game leaving any 


available card unplayed. 
Yours truly, 


A. LINCOLN 


Telegram to Governor Andrew 


War Department, Washington City, D. C. 

August 12, 1862 

Governor Andrew, Boston, Mass.: Your des- 
patch saying “I can’t get those regiments off because I 
can’t get quick work out of the U. 8. disbursing officer 
and the paymaster”’ is received. Please say to these 
gentlemen that if they do not work quickly I will make 
quick work with them. In the name of all that is 
reasonable, how long does it take to pay a couple of 
regiments? We were never more in need of the arrival 


of regiments than now — even to-day. 
A. LINCOLN 


Letter to Horace Greeley 


The summer of 1862 was a dreary time for the North. 
MeClellan’s Peninsular campaign against Richmond ended 
in a retreat and McClellan was removed. A second battle 
of Bull Run followed and ended in a complete rout of the 
Northern Army. Meanwhile, the powerful warship Alabama 


1 Reverdy Johnson himself. See Lincoln’s letter to him dated 
April 24, 1861. 


Addresses and Letters 169 


had escaped from Liverpool to prey upon Union commerce. 
In the midst of this, Horace Greeley published in the New 
York Tribune an open letter addressed to ‘‘Abraham Lin- 
coln, President of the United States.’’ Two columns of the 
newspaper were used to serve notice upon the President that 
the people of the North ‘‘were deeply pained by the policy 
you seem to be pursuing with regard to the slaves of rebels.”’ 
‘*You never give a direction,’’ the letter continued, ‘‘ which 
does not appear to have been conceived in the interest of 
Slavery rather than that of Freedom.’’ And, “‘we require of 
you, as the first servant of the Republic, that you EXECUTE 
THE LAWS.”’ 

Immediately upon reading the letter, Lincoln telegraphed 
this reply to Greeley. It should be noted that one month 
before this (July 22) the President had read a draft of an 
emancipation proclamation to his cabinet and was delaying 
the issue of it only until the Union forces should win a vic- 
tory. In the circumstances the restraint of the letter is ex- 
traordinary. It stirred the North to rally to the support 
of the government. 


Executive Mansion, Washington, August 22, 1862 
Hon. Horace Greeley. 

Dear Sir: I have just read yours of the 19th, ad- 
dressed to myself through the New York Tribune. 
If there be in it any statements or assumptions of fact 
which I may know to be erroneous, I do not, now and 
here, controvert them. If there be in it any inferences 
which I may believe to be falsely drawn, I do not, now 
and here, argue against them. If there be perceptible 
in it an impatient and dictatorial tone, I waive it in 
deference to an old friend, whose heart I have always 
supposed to be right. 

As to the policy I “seem to be pursuing,’ as you 
say, I have not meant to leave any one in doubt. 


170 Abraham Lincoln 


I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest 
way under the Constitution. The sooner the national 
authority can be restored, the nearer the Union will be 
“the Union as it was.” If there be those who would 
not save the Union unless they could at the same time 
save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be 
those who would not save the Union unless they could 
at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with 
them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save 
the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. 
If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I 
would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all the 
slaves, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing 
some and leaving others alone, I would also do that. 
What I do about slavery and the colored race, I do 
because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what 
I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would 
help to save the Union. I-shall do less whenever I shall 
believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do 
more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the 
cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be 
errors, and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall 
appear to be true views. I have here stated my purpose 
according to my view of official duty, and I intend no 
modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all 


men, everywhere, could be free. 
Yours, 


A. LINCOLN 
Telegrams to McClellan 


On August 30, 1862, McClellan had been shelved and left 
in command of only a small portion of the Army of the Poto- 
mac, the main part going to General Pope. The latter was 


‘ZOST ‘F 19q0}00 ‘ovM0}0g sy} Jo Avy ‘sIoJAeNbproyy 
‘NVLOILNY LV NTIOONT'T 


Addresses and Letters 171 


fearfully thrashed at the Second Battle of Bull Run, and 
McClellan again given command. Meanwhile, Lee’s ragged 
army, singing ‘‘Maryland, my Maryland,” crossed the 
Potomac; McClellan met them at Antietam Creek, Septem- 
ber 16. 


The Day before the Battle 


September 15, 1862 2:45 p.m. 
Masor-GENERAL McCLeLLAN: Your despatch of 
to-day received. God bless you and all with you. 
Destroy the rebel army if possible. 
A. LINCOLN 


Fie Weeks after the Battle 


McClellan had again relapsed into inactivity. 


October 24, 1862 
Mayor-GENERAL McCiLeLuAn: I have just read 
your dispatch about sore-tongued and fatigued horses. 
Will you pardon me for asking what the horses of your 
army have done since the battle of Antietam that 
fatigues anything? 
A. LINCOLN 


But the kindly President could not for long harbor im- 
patience. 


Executive Mansion, Washington 
October 26, 1862 11:30 a.m. 
Masor-GENERAL McCLELLAN: Yours in reply to 
mine about horses received. Of course you know the 
facts better than I; still, two considerations remain. 
Stuart’s cavalry outmarched yours, having certainly 
done more marked service in the Peninsula and every- 


172 Abraham Lincoln 


where since. Secondly, will not a movement of our 
army be a relief to the cavalry, compelling the enemy to 
concentrate instead of foraging in squads everywhere? 
But I am so rejoiced to learn from your despatch to 
General Halleck that you begin crossing the river this 
morning. 

A. LINCOLN 


Reply to a Committee from the Religious De- 
nominations of Chicago 

This letter indicates the President’s determination to test 
the supporters of emancipation by forcing them to face the 
other side of the question. As a matter of fact, his mind 
was made up, and only nine days later, in cabinet meeting, 
he read his warning proclamation. In the interval McClellan 
had won the bloody battle of Antietam and Lee had retreated 
from Maryland. 


[September 13, 1862] 

The subject presented in the memorial is one upon 
which I have thought much for weeks past, and I may 
even say for months. I am approached with the most 
opposite opinions and advice, and that by religious 
men who are equally certain that they represent the 
divine will. I am sure that either the one or the other 
class is mistaken in that belief, and perhaps in some 
respects both. I hope it will not be irreverent for me 
to say that if it is probable that God would reveal His 
will to others on a point so connected with my duty, 
it might be supposed He would reveal it directly to 
me; for, unless | am more deceived in myself than I 
often am, it is my earnest desire to know the will of 
Providence in this matter. And if I can learn what 


Addresses and Letters 173 


it is, I will do it. These are not, however, the days 
of miracles, and I suppose it will be granted that I 
am not to expect a direct revelation. I must study 
the plain physical facts of the case, ascertain what is 
possible, and learn what appears to be wise and right. 

The subject is difficult, and good men do not agree. 
For instance, the other day four gentlemen of standing 
and intelligence from New York called as a delegation 
on business connected with the war; but, before 
leaving, two of them earnestly beset me to proclaim 
general emancipation, upon which the other two at 
once attacked them. You know also that the last 
session of Congress had a decided majority of anti- 
slavery men, yet they could not unite on this policy. 
And the same is true of the religious people. Why, 
the rebel soldiers are praying with a great deal more 
earnestness, I fear, than our own troops, and expect- 
ing God to favor their side; for one of our soldiers who 
had been taken prisoner told Senator Wilson a few days 
since that he met with nothing so discouraging as the 
evident sincerity of those he was among in their prayers. 
But we will talk over the merits of the case. 

What good would a proclamation of emancipation 
from me do, especially as we are now situated? I do 
not want to issue a document that the whole world 
will see must necessarily be inoperative, like the Pope’s 
bull against the comet. Would my word free the slaves, 
when I cannot even enforce the Constitution in the 
rebel States? Is there a single court, or magistrate, 
or individual that would be influenced by it there? 
And what reason is there to think it would have any 
greater effect upon the slaves than the late law of 


174 Abraham Lincoln 


Congress, which I approved, and which offers protection 
and freedom to the slaves of rebel masters who come 
within our lines? Yet I cannot learn that that law 
has caused a single slave to come over to us. And 
suppose they could be induced by a proclamation of 
freedom from me to throw themselves upon us, what 
should we do with them? How can we feed and care 
for such a multitude? General Butler! wrote me 
a few days since that he was issuing more rations to 
the slaves who have rushed to him than to all the 
white troops under his command. They eat, and that 
is all; though it is true General Butler is feeding the 
whites also by the thousand, for it nearly amounts to 
afamine there. If, now, the pressure of the war should 
call off our forces from New Orleans to defend some 
other point, what is to prevent the masters from re- 
ducing the blacks to slavery again? For I am told 
that whenever the rebels take any black prisoners 
free or slave, they immediately auction them off. 
They did so with those they took from a boat that 
was aground in the Tennessee River a few days ago. 
And then I am very ungenerously attacked for it! 
For instance, when, after the late battles at and near 
Bull Run,’ an expedition went out from Washington 
under a flag of truce to bury the dead and bring in 
the wounded, and the rebels seized the blacks who 
went along to help, and sent them into slavery, Horace 
Greeley said in his paper that the government would 
probably do nothing about it. What. could I do? 
Now, then, tell me, if you please, what possible 


1 Union general in command at New Orleans. 
2 The rout of August 29, 1862. 


Addresses and Letters L75 


result of good would follow the issuing of such a proc- 
lamation as you desire? Understand, I raise no ob- 
jections against it on legal or constitutional grounds; 
for, as commander-in-chief of the army and navy, in 
time of war I suppose I have a right to take any meas- 
ure which may best subdue the enemy; nor do I 
urge objections of a moral nature, in view of possible 
consequences of insurrection and massacre at the 
South. I view this matter as a practical war measure, 
to be decided on according to the advantages or dis- 
advantages it may offer to the suppression of the 
rebellion. 

I admit that slavery is the root of the rebellion, or 
at least its sine qua non.1 The ambition of politicians 
may have instigated them to act, but they would have 
been impotent without slavery as their instrument. 
I will also concede that emancipation would help us 
in Europe,? and convince them that we are incited by 
something more than ambition. I grant, further, that 
it would help somewhat at the North, though not so 
much, I fear, as you and those you represent imagine. 
Still, some additional strength would be added in that 
way to the war, and then, unquestionably, it would 
weaken the rebels by drawing off their laborers, which 
is of great importance; but I am not so sure we could 
do much with the blacks. If we were to arm them, 
I fear that in a few weeks the arms would be in the 
hands of the rebels; and, indeed, thus far we have 
not had arms enough to equip our white troops. I 
will mention another thing, though it meet only your 


1 Hssential : literally ‘‘ without which, nothing.” 
2 Especially in England. 


176 Abraham Lincoln 


scorn and contempt. There are fifty thousand bayo- 
nets in the Union armies from the border slave States. - 
It would be a serious matter if, in consequence of a 
proclamation such as you desire, they should go over 
to the rebels. I do not think they all would — not so 
many, indeed, as a year ago, or as six months ago — 
not so many to-day as yesterday. Every day increases 
their Union feeling. They are also getting their pride 
enlisted, and want to beat the rebels. Let me say one 
thing more: I think you should admit that we already 
have an important principle to rally and unite the 
people, in the fact that constitutional government is 
at stake. This is a fundamental idea going down 
about as deep as anything. 

Do not misunderstand me because I have mentioned 
these objections. They indicate the difficulties that 
have thus far prevented my action in some such way 
as you desire. J have not decided against a proclama- 
tion of liberty to the slaves, but hold the matter under 
advisement; and I can assure you that the subject is 
on my mind, by day and night, more than any other. 
Whatever shall appear to be God’s will, I will do. 
I trust that in the freedom with which I have can- 
vassed your views I have not in any respect injured 
your feelings. 


Letter to Carl Schurz 


During the disheartening autumn of 1862 Carl Schurz, 
a brigadier-general in the West, joined those who wished to 
point out to the President just what he should do. Schurz’s 
remedy was to dismiss political opponents from the army 
and remove them from councils. He wrote Lincoln on No- 
vember 8, and again on the 20th. In his Reminiscences he 


Addresses and Letters iyly, 


tells of meeting Lincoln later in Washington. ‘‘He greeted 
me cordially as of old and bade me pull up a chair and sit 
by his side. Then he brought his large hand with a slap 
down on my knee and said with a smile: ‘Now tell me, young 
man, whether you really think that I am as poor a fellow 
as you have made me out in your letter!’’’ The career of 
Carl Schurz is important and interesting enough to be looked 
up. As late as 1900 he was a vigorous figure in political life. 


Executive Mansion, Washington 
November 24, 1862 
General Carl Schurz. 

My pear Sir: I have just received and read your 
letter of the 20th. The purport of it is that we lost 
the late elections and the Administration is failing be- 
cause the war is unsuccessful, and that I must not 
flatter myself that I am not justly to blame for it. I 
certainly know that if the war fails, the Administra- 
tion fails, and that I will be blamed for it, whether I 
deserve it or not. And I ought to be blamed if I could 
do better. You think I could do better; therefore 
you blame me already. I think I could not do better ; 
therefore I blame you for blaming me. I understand 
you now to be willing to accept the help of men who 
are not Republicans, provided they have ‘‘heart in 
it.” Agreed. I want no others. But who is to be 
the judge of hearts, or of “heart in it’? If I must 
discard my own judgment and take yours, I must also 
take that of others; and by the time I should reject 
all I should be advised to reject, I should have none 
left, Republicans or others — not even yourself. For 
be assured, my dear sir, there are men who have “heart 
in it” that think you are performing your part as poorly 


178 Abraham Lincoln 


as you think I am performing mine. I certainly have 
been dissatisfied with the slowness of Buell and 
McClellan; but before I relieved them I had great fears 
I should not find successors to them who would do 
better; and I am sorry to add that I have seen little 
since to relieve those fears.1 

I do not clearly see the prospect of any more rapid 
movements. I fear we shall at last find out that the 
difficulty is in our case rather than in particular gen- 
erals. I wish to disparage no one — certainly not those 
who sympathize with me, but I must say I need success 
more than I need sympathy, and that I have not seen 
the so much greater evidence of getting success from 
my sympathizers than from those who are denounced 
as the contrary. It does seem to me that in the field 
the two classes have been very much alike in what they 
have done and what they have failed to do. In sealing 
their faith with their blood, Baker and Lyon and Bohlen 
and Richardson, Republicans, did all that men could do ; 
but did they any more than Kearny and Stevens and 
Reno and Mansfield, none of whom were Republicans, 
and some at least of whom have been bitterly and re- 
peatedly denounced to me as secession sympathizers? 
I will not perform the ungrateful task of comparing 
cases of failure. 

In answer to your question, “‘ Has it not been publicly 
stated in the newspapers, and apparently proved as a 
fact, that from the commencement of the war the enemy 
was continually supplied with information by some 
of the confidential subordinates of as important an 


1 Pope, who relieved McClellan, was beaten at Bull Run, August 
29 and 30, 1862. 


Addresses and Letters 179 


officer as Adjutant-General Thomas?”’ I must say 
“No,” as far as my knowledge extends. And I add 
that if you can give any tangible evidence upon the 
subject, I will thank you to come to this city and do so. 
Very truly your friend, 
A. LINCOLN 


Lincoln and the Deserters 


A ease typical of hundreds that Lincoln had to deal with; 
and a conclusion characteristic of him. 


Executive Mansion, Washington, November 3, 1863 
Masor-GENERAL Mrapb, ARMY OF THE POTOMAC: 
Samuel Wellers, private in Company B, Forty-ninth 
Pennsylvania Volunteers, writes that he is to be shot for 
desertion on the 6th instant. His own story is rather 
a bad one, and yet he tells it so frankly that I am 
somewhat interested in him. Has he been a good 
soldier except for the desertion? About how old is he? 
A. LINCOLN 


Executive Mansion, Washington, November 5, 1863 

Masor-GENERAL Mrapr, ARMY OF THE POTOMAC: 

Please suspend the execution of Samuel Wellers, Forty- 
ninth Pennsylvania Volunteers, until further orders. 
A. LINCOLN 


Letter to General N. P. Banks 


The following letter explains itself and is a sample of the 
sort of military strategy that Lincoln was quick to judge with 
irresistible common sense. General Banks was bound for 
New Orleans. 


180 Abraham Lincoln 


Executive Mansion, Washington, November 22, 1862 

My DEAR GENERAL BANKs: Early last week you left 
me in high hope with your assurance that you would be 
off with your expedition at the end of that week, or 
early in this. It is now the end of this, and I have just 
been overwhelmed and confounded with the sight of a 
requisition made by you which, I am assured, cannot be 
filled and got off within an hour short of two months. 
I inclose you a copy of the requisition, in some hope that 
it is not genuine — that you have never seen it. My 
dear General, this expanding and piling up of im- 
pedimenta has been, so far, almost our ruin, and will 
be our final ruin if it is not abandoned. If you had the 
articles of this requisition upon the wharf, with the nec- 
essary animals to make them of any use, and forage for 
the animals, you could not get vessels together in two 
weeks to carry the whole, to say nothing of your twenty 
thousand men; and, having the vessels, you could not 
put the cargoes aboard in two weeks more. And, after 
all, where you are going you have no use for them. 
When you parted with me you had no such idea in your 
mind. I know you had not, or you could not have 
expected to be off so soon as you said. You must get 
back to something like the plan you had then, or your 
expedition is a failure before you start. You must be 
off before Congress meets. You would be better off 
anywhere, and especially where you are going, for not 
having a thousand wagons doing nothing but hauling 
forage to feed the animals that draw them, and taking 
at least two thousand men to care for the wagons and 
animals, who otherwise might be two thousand good 
soldiers. Now, dear General, do not think this an 


Addresses and Letters I8I 


ill-natured letter; it is the very reverse. The simple 
publication of this requisition would ruin you. 
Very truly your friend, 
A. LINCOLN 


_ Letter to William H. Seward and Salmon P. Chase 


Seward and Chase had a stormy time of it in the cabinet. 
A Senate faction supporting Chase demanded Seward’s res- 
ignation. Seward resigned, and then Chase followed. Lin- 
ecoln could spare neither. Remarking privately that he now 
had a pumpkin on each side of his saddle and could ride, he 
wrote this letter. 


Executive Mansion, Washington, December 20, 1862 
Hon. William H. Seward and Hon. Salmon P. Chase. 

GENTLEMEN: You have respectively tendered tome 
your resignations as Secretary of State and Secretary 
of the Treasury of the United States. I am apprised 
of the circumstances which may render this course per- 
sonally desirable to each of you; but after most anxious 
consideration my deliberate judgment is that the public 
interest does not admit of it. I therefore have to 
request that you will resume the duties of your de- 


partments respectively. 
Your obedient servant, 


A. LINCOLN 


Emancipation Proclamation 


From the standpoint of history, the Emancipation Proc- 
lamation takes rank with such documents as Magna Charta, 
the Bill of Rights, and the Declaration of Independence as a 
charter of human freedom. But Lincoln, much as he desired 
that men everywhere could be free, issued this proclamation 


182 Abraham Lincoln 


simply as a blow at the South. In his annual message of 
December, 1861, he had recommended compensated eman- 
cipation: that is, a plan by which slaves could be bought by 
the government from their owners and then given their free- 
dom. He revoked an emancipation proclamation that had 
been issued by General Frémont and another by General 
Hunter. He was not in sympathy with John Brown or other 
Abolitionists. In fact, it must not be forgotten, these latter 
were a very small minority of the North, the majority opinion 
being in favor of letting the South have their slaves. The 
country was not ready for extreme measures in 1861. By 
July 22, 1862, however, Lincoln had given up the hope of 
gradual emancipation, and decided upon a proclamation. 
Seward urged delay because of the failure of the Peninsula 
campaign. Five days after the success at Antietam in Sep- 
tember, Lincoln called the Cabinet together and after reading 
them a portion of a book of humor by Artemus Ward, suddenly 
turned grave and announced his determination to issue a 
proclamation. This warning was followed in due course by 
the final proclamation of January 1, 1863. 

The most important effect was the change in England’s 
feeling toward us. Recognition of the South was now im- 
possible. The starving factory hands of English cities who 
could not understand a war for ‘‘the Union,’”’ could sym- 
pathize with a war against human slavery. 

The net result for the Army was an increase of some 180,000 
men before the end of the war. The South retaliated by 
declaring outlaws the white officers who led negro troops. 
The movement for emancipation grew, nevertheless, and 
before Lincoln’s death Congress had passed the Thirteenth 
Amendment, and it was ratified by the legislatures of the 
states before the end of 1865. 


[January 1, 1863] 
Whereas, on the twenty-second day of September, 
in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred 
and sixty-two, a proclamation was issued by the Presi- 


Addresses and Letters 183 


dent of the United States, containing, among other 
things, the following, to wit: 


That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord 
one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons 
held as slaves within any state, or designated part of a state, 
the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United 
States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and 
the Executive Government of the United States, including the 
military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and 
maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act 
or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts 
they may make for their actual freedom. 

That the executive will, on the first day of January afore- 
said, by proclamation, designate the states and parts of states, 
if any, in which the people thereof respectively shall then be in 
rebellion against the United States; and the fact that any 
state, or the people thereof, shall on that day be in good faith 
represented in the Congress of the United States by members 
chosen thereto at elections wherein a majority of the qualified 
voters of such state shall have participated, shall in the 
absence of strong countervailing testimony be deemed con- 
clusive evidence that such state and the people thereof are not 
then in rebellion against the United States. 


Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the 
United States, by virtue of the power in me vested as 
commander in chief of the army and navy of the 
United States, in time of actual armed rebellion against 
the authority and government of the United States, 
and as a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing 
said rebellion, do, on this first day of January, in the 
year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty- 
three, and in accordance with my purpose so to do, 
publicly proclaimed for the full period of 100 days from 
the day first above mentioned, order and designate as 


184 Abraham Lincoln 


the states and parts of states wherein the people thereof, 
respectively, are this day in rebellion against the United 
States, the following, to wit: 

Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana (except the parishes of 
St. Bernard, Plaquemines, Jefferson, St. John, St. 
Charles, St. James, Ascension, Assumption, Terre 
Bonne, Lafourche, St. Mary, St. Martin, and Orleans, 
including the city of New Orleans), Mississippi, Ala- 
bama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Caro- 


lina, and Virginia (except the forty-eight counties desig- 


nated as West Virginia, and also the counties of 
Berkeley, Accomac, Northampton, Elizabeth City, 
York, Princess Ann, and Norfolk, including the cities 
of Norfolk and Portsmouth), and which excepted parts 
are for the present left precisely as if this proclamation 
were not issued. 

And by virtue of the power and for the purpose afore- 
said, I do order and declare that all persons held as 
slaves within said designated states and parts of states 
are, and henceforward shall be, free; and that the 
executive government of the United States, including 
the military and naval authorities thereof, will recognize 
and maintain the freedom of said persons. 

And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to be 
free to abstain from all violence, unless in necessary self- 
defense ; and I recommend to them that, in all cases 
when allowed, they labor faithfully for reasonable wages. 

And I further declare and make known that such 
persons of suitable condition will be received into the 
armed service of the United States to garrison forts, 
positions, stations, and other places, and to man vessels 
of all sorts in said service. 


Addresses and Letters 185 


And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act 
of justice, warranted by the Constitution upon military 
necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of man- 
kind and the gracious favor of Almighty God. 

In witness, ete. ABRAHAM LINCOLN 


Bythe President : W1LL1AM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State 


Letter to General John A. McClernand 


No evidence has ever been brought forth to show that 
Lincoln ever changed his attitude toward the Southern 
people expressed in his Peoria speech (p. 12). Nevertheless, 
in the heat and passion of a Civil War it was natural that the 
Emancipation Proclamation (and especially that part which 
invited the negroes to join the Union Army) should arouse 
violent protest. It is interesting to note that General Mc- 
Clernand was an old friend of Linecoln’s who belonged to the 
Springfield group that included Douglas, O. H. Browning, 
and Trumbull. 


Executive Mansion, Washington, January 8, 1863 
Major-General McClernand. 

My pEeAR Sir: Your interesting communication by 
the hand of Major Scates is received. I never did ask 
more, nor ever was willing to accept less, than for all 
the states, and the people thereof, to take and hold 
their places and their rights in the Union, under the 
Constitution of the United States. For this alone have 
I felt authorized to struggle, and I seek neither more 
nor less now. Still, to use a coarse but an expressive 
figure, “broken eggs cannot be mended.” I have issued 
the Emancipation Proclamation, and I cannot retract 
it. After the commencement of hostilities, I struggled 


186 Abraham Lincoln 


nearly a year and a half to get along without touching 
the ‘‘institution”’; and when finally I conditionally de- 
termined to touch it, I gave a hundred days’ fair notice 
of my purpose to all the states and people, within which 
time they could have turned it wholly aside by simply 
again becoming good citizens of the United States. 

They chose to disregard it, and I made the peremp- 
tory proclamation on what appeared to me to be a mili- 
tary necessity. And being made, it must stand. As to 
the states not included in it, of course they can have 
their rights in the Union as of old. Even the people of 
the states included, if they choose, need not to be hurt 
by it. Let them adopt systems of apprenticeship for 
the colored people, conforming substantially to the most 
approved plans of gradual emancipation; and with the 
aid they can have from the General Government 
they may be nearly as well off, in this respect, as if 
the present trouble had not occurred, and much better 
off than they can possibly be if the contest continues 
persistently. 

As to any dread of my having a “purpose to enslave 
or exterminate the whites of the South,’’ I can scarcely 
believe that such dread exists. It is too absurd. I 
believe you can be my personal witness that no man is 
less to be dreaded for undue severity in any case. 

If the friends you mention really wish to have peace 
upon the old terms, they should act at once. Every 
day makes the case more difficult. 

They.can so act with entire safety, so far as I am 
concerned. 

I think you had better not make this letter public; 
but you may rely confidently on my standing by what- 


Addresses and Letters 187 


ever I have said in it. Please write me if anything 
more comes to light. 
Yours very truly, 


A. LINCOLN 


Letter to Manchester Workingmen 


The Civil War, and in particular, the Union blockade of 
Southern ports was a severe blow to the workingmen of the 
factory districts of England. The supply of raw cotton shut 
off, factories closed, unemployment and distress followed. 
The feeling against the North was changed, however, by 
Lincoln’s preliminary proclamation of September, and a tide 
of anti-slavery sentiment set in. On New Year’s Eve, the 
night before the final proclamation was to take effect, public 
meetings were held in the large cities, and at Manchester, 
six thousand workingmen, with great enthusiasm, adopted 
an address to President Lincoln. This is Lincoln’s reply. 


Executive Mansion, Washington, January 19, 1863 

To THE WORKINGMEN OF MANCHESTER: I have the 
honor to acknowledge the receipt of the address and 
resolutions which you sent me on the eve of the new 
year. When I came, on the 4th of March, 1861, 
through a free and constitutional election to preside in 
the government of the United States, the country was 
found at the verge of civil war. Whatever might have 
been the cause, or whosesoever the fault, one duty, 
paramount to all others, was before me, namely, to 
maintain and preserve at once the Constitution and the 
integrity of the federal republic. A conscientious 
purpose to perform this duty is the key to all the 
measures of administration which have been and to all 
which will hereafter be pursued, Under our frame of 


188 Abraham Lincoln 


government and my official oath, I could not depart 
from this purpose if I would. It is not always in the 
power of governments to enlarge or restrict the scope of 
moral results which follow the policies that they may 
deem it necessary for the public safety from time to 
time to adopt. 

I have understood well that the duty of self-preserva- 
tion rests solely with the American people; but I have 
at the same time been aware that favor or disfavor of 
foreign nations might have a material influence in en- 
larging or prolonging the struggle with disloyal men in 
which the country is engaged. A fair examination of 
history has served to authorize a belief that the past 
actions and influences of the United States were gen- 
erally regarded as having been beneficial toward man- 
kind. I have, therefore, reckoned upon the forbearance 
of nations. Circumstances — to some of which you 
kindly allude — induce me especially to expect that if 
justice and good faith should be practiced by the 
United States, they would encounter no hostile influence 
on the part of Great Britain. It is now a pleasant duty 
to acknowledge the demonstration you have given of 
your desire that a spirit of amity and peace toward this 
country may prevail in the councils of your Queen, who 
is respected. and esteemed in your own country only 
more than she is by the kindred nation which has its 
home on this side of the Atlantic. 

I know and deeply deplore the sufferings which the 
workingmen at Manchester, and in all Europe, are 
called to endure in this crisis. It has been often and 
studiously represented that the attempt to overthrow 
this government, which was built upon the foundation 


Addresses and Letters 189 


of human rights, and to substitute for it one which 
should rest exclusively on the basis of human slavery, 
was likely to obtain the favor of Europe. Through 
the action of our disloyal citizens, the workingmen of 
Europe have been subjected to severe trials, for the 
purpose of forcing their sanction to that attempt. 
Under the circumstances, I cannot but regard your 
decisive utterances upon the question as an instance of 
sublime Christian heroism which has not been surpassed 
in any age or in any country. It is indeed an energetic 
and reinspiring assurance of the inherent power of truth, 
and of the ultimate and universal triumph of justice, 
humanity, and freedom. I do not doubt that the 
sentiments you have expressed will be sustained by 
your great nation; and, on the other hand, I have no 
hesitation in assuring you that they will excite admira- 
tion, esteem, and the most reciprocal feelings of friend- 
ship among the American people. I hail this inter- 
change of sentiment, therefore, as an augury that 
whatever else may happen, whatever misfortunes may 
befall your country or my own, the peace and friend- 
ship which now exist between the two nations will be, as 
it shall be my desire to make them, perpetual. 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 


Letter to Joseph Hooker 


When McClellan, after the battle of Antietam, refused to 
follow up his victory, but let Lee place himself between the 
Union Army and Richmond, Lincoln removed him. The 
new commander, Burnside, determined upon a frontal attack 
on the entrenched position of Fredericksburg. The slaughter 
of the Union troops in this attack was frightful. Burnside 
was then removed and Hooker placed in command. Hooker 


190 Abraham Lincoln 


had been an outspoken critic of both McClellan and Burn- 
side. The latter had, in fact, prepared an order removing 
Hooker because he lacked ‘‘moderation, forbearance, and 
unselfish patriotism.’”’ Talk about Hooker leading a mutiny, 
and setting himself up as dictator, was current in Washing- 
ton. Remarking to a friend, ‘‘Hooker talks badly, but the 
trouble is he is stronger with the country to-day than any other 
man,’ Lincoln gave him the command. Hooker, unfor- 
tunately for the North, was no match for Lee and Stonewall 
Jackson. At Chancellorsville, early in May, the Union 
army suffered another terrible defeat. Two months later, 
a few days before Gettysburg, Lincoln relieved Hooker and 
gave the command to Meade. Hooker afterward went to 
Chattanooga and won a brilliant success upon Lookout 
Mountain. 


Executive Mansion, Washington, January 26, 1863 
Major-General Hooker. 

GENERAL: I have placed you at the head of the 
Army of the Potomac. Of course I have done this 
upon what appear to me to be sufficient reasons, and 
yet I think it best for you to know that there are some 
things in regard to which I am not quite satisfied with 
you. I believe you to be a brave and skilful soldier, 
which of course I like. I also believe you do not mix 
politics with your profession, in which you are right. 
You have confidence in yourself, which is a valuable 
if not an indispensable quality. You are ambitious, 
which, within reasonable bounds, does good rather than 
harm; but I think that during General Burnside’s 
command of the army you have taken counsel of your 
ambition and thwarted him as much as you could, in 
which you did a great wrong to the country and to a 
most meritorious and honorable brother officer. I have 


Addresses and Letters I9I 


heard, in such a way as to believe it, of your recently 
saying that both the army and the government needed 
a dictator. Of course it was not for this, but in spite 
of it, that I have given you the command. Only those 
generals who gain successes can set up dictators. 
What I now ask of you is military success, and I will 
risk the dictatorship. The government will support 
you to the utmost of its ability, which is neither more 
nor less than it has done and will do for all commanders. 
I much fear that the spirit which you have aided to 
infuse into the army, of criticizing their commander and 
withholding confidence from him, will now turn upon 
you. I shall assist you as far as I can to put it down. 
Neither you nor Napoleon, if he were alive again, could 
get any good out of an army while such a spirit pre- 
vails in it; and now beware of rashness, but with energy 
and sleepless vigilance go forward and give us victories. 
Yours very truly, 
A. LINCOLN 


Letter to Governor Horatio Seymour 


Horatio Seymour had been elected governor of New York 
in the autumn of 1862. He belonged to that wing of the 
Democratic party which supported the war for the Union, 
but did not believe in emancipation. To win him over to a 
vigorous support of the war, Lincoln offered to help him get 
the presidential nomination of 1864. Seymour, however, 
was strongly partisan, remained hostile to Lincoln, and ob- 
structed the draft of 1863. In 1868 he was the candidate of 
the Democrats against Grant. The following letter from — 
Lincoln he ignored for three weeks. He later declined to 
go to Washington to talk with Lincoln about the quotas in 
the draft which he had found fault with. 


192 Abraham Lincoln 


[Private and Confidential] 
Executive Mansion, Washington, March 238, 1863 
His Excellency Governor Seymour. 

Dear Str: You and I are substantially strangers, 
and I write this chiefly that we may become better 
acquainted. I, for the time being, am at the head of a 
nation which is in great peril, and you are at the head 
of the greatest state of that nation. As to maintaining 
the nation’s life and integrity, I assume and believe 
there cannot be a difference of purpose between you 
and me. If we should differ as to the means, it is 
important that such difference should be as small as 
possible; that it should not be enhanced by un- 
just suspicions on one side or the other. In the 
performance of my duty the codperation of your state, 
as that of others, is needed — in fact, is indispensable. 
This alone is a sufficient reason why I should wish to be 
at a good understanding with you. . Please write me at 
least as long a letter as this, of course saying in it just 
what you think fit. 

Yours very truly, 
A. LINCOLN 


Telegrams to General Joseph Hooker 


After Chancellorsville, Lee decided to carry the war into 
the North. These telegrams were written during the ma- 
neuvers that preceded Gettysburg. 


June 10, 1863 

Masor GENERAL Hooker: Your long dispatch of 
to-day is just received. If left to me I would not go 
south of the Rappahannock upon Lee’s moving north of 


Addresses and Letters 193 


it. If you had Richmond invested to-day you would 
not be able to take it in twenty days; meanwhile your 
communications, and with them your army, would be 
ruined. I think Lee’s army, and not Richmond, is 
your true objective point. If he comes toward the 
upper Potomac, follow on his flank and on his inside 
track, shortening your lines while he lengthens his. 
Fight him, too, when opportunity offers. If he stays 
where he is, fret him and fret him. 
A. LINCOLN 


June 14, 1863 
Masor GENERAL Hooker: So far as we can make 
out here, the enemy have Milroy surrounded at Win- 
chester, and Tyler at Martinsburg. If they could hold 
out a few days, could you help them? If the head of 
Lee’s army is at Martinsburg and the tail of it on the 
plank road between Fredericksburg and Chancellors- 
ville, the animal must be very slim somewhere. Could 
you not break him? 
A. LINCOLN 


Letter to General U. S. Grant 


On the fourth of July, 1863, Lee began to remove his shat- 
tered army from Gettysburg. At the same time, the South- 
ern army at Vicksburg surrendered to Grant. In the Gettys- 
burg battle Lincoln had been the real commander, for he had 
kept in close touch with the Army of the Potomac through 
all of its movements, even changing generals afew days before 
the battle. In the Vicksburg campaign his chief work was 
to protect Grant against those who clamored for his removal, 
and to let him work out his own plans. This tribute to 
Grant is no less a tribute to the large-mindedness of Lincoln. 


194 Abraham Lincoln 


Executive Mansion, Washington, July 13, 1863 
Major General Grant. 

My DEAR GENERAL: I do not remember that you 
and I ever met personally. I write this now as a grate- 
ful acknowledgment for the almost inestimable service 
you have done the country. I wish to say a word 
further. When you first reached the vicinity of Vicks- 
burg, I thought you should do what you finally did — 
march the troops across the neck, run the batteries 
with the transports, and thus go below; and I never 
had any faith, except a general hope that you knew 
better than I, that the Yazoo Pass expedition and the 
like could succeed. When you got below and took 
Port Gibson, Grand Gulf, and vicinity, I thought you 
should go down the river and: join General Banks, and 
when you turned northward, east of the Big Black, I 
feared it was a mistake. I now wish to make the 
personal acknowledgment that you were right and I 
was wrong. 

Yours very truly, 
A. LINCOLN 


Letter to James C. Conkling 


ee 


This is Lincoln’s famous ‘‘stump speech” letter. He had 
been invited to speak in his home town to a mass meeting; 
instead, he sent this letter and asked that Conkling read it 
very slowly. The historian Rhodes says of it, ‘‘It is safe to 
say that had the result of the elections been really in doubt 
after Gettysburg and Vicksburg, the tide would have been 
turned by the timely and unanswerable logic of this letter.’’ 
In the elections following that autumn Lincoln’s party was 
sustained by good margins in almost every state then in the 
Union. 


Addresses and Letters 195 


Executive Mansion, Washington, August 26, 1863 
Hon. James C. Conkling. 

My pEAR Sir: Your letter inviting me to attend a 
mass meeting of unconditional Union men, to be held at 
the capital of Illinois on the 3d day of September, has 
been received. It would be very agreeable to me to 
thus meet my old friends at my own home, but I cannot 
just now be absent from here so long as a visit there 
would require. 

The meeting is to be of all those who maintain uncon- 
ditional devotion to the Union; and J am sure my old 
political friends will thank me for tendering, as I do, the 
nation’s gratitude to those and other noble men whom 
no partisan malice or partisan hope can make false to 
the nation’s life. 

There are those who are dissatisfied with me. To 
such I would say: You desire peace, and you blame me 
that we do not have it. But how can we attain it? 
There are but three conceivable ways: First, to sup- 
press the rebellion by force of arms. This I am trying 
to do. Are you for it? If you are, so far we are 
agreed. If you are not for it, a second way is to give 
up the Union. I am against this. Are you for it? 
If you are, you should say so plainly. If you are not 
for force, nor yet for dissolution, there only remains 
some imaginable compromise. I do not believe any 
compromise embracing the maintenance of the Union is 
now possible. All I learn leads to a directly opposite 
belief. The strength of the rebellion is its military, its 
army. That army dominates all the country and all 
the people within its range. Any offer of terms made 
by any man or men within that range, in opposition to 


196 Abraham Lincoln 


that army, is simply nothing for the present, because 
such man or men have no power whatever to enforce 
their side of a compromise if one were made with them. 

To illustrate: Suppose refugees from the South and 
peace men of the North get together in convention, and 
frame and proclaim a compromise embracing a restora- 
tion of the Union. In what way can that compromise 
be used to keep Lee’s army out of Pennsylvania? 
Meade’s army can keep Lee’s army out of Pennsylvania, 
and, I think, can ultimately drive it out of existence. 
But no paper compromise to which the controllers of 
Lee’s army are not agreed can at all affect that army. 
In an effort at such compromise we should waste time 
which the enemy would improve to our disadvantage ; 
and that would be all. A compromise, to be effective, 
must be made either with those who control the rebel 
army, or with the people first liberated from the domi- 
nation of that army by the success of our own army. 
Now, allow me to assure you that no word or intimation 
from that rebel army, or from any of the men con- 
trolling it, in relation to any peace compromise, has ever 
come to my knowledge or belief. All charges and 
insinuations to the contrary are deceptive and ground- 
less. And I promise you that if any such proposition 
shall hereafter come, it shall not be rejected and kept a 
secret from you. I freely acknowledge myself the 
servant of the people according to the bond of serv- 
ice — the United States Constitution — and that, as 
such, I am responsible to them. 

But to be plain. You are dissatisfied with me about 
the negro. Quite likely there is a difference of opinion 
between you and myself upon that subject, I certainly 


—=—_. 


Addresses and Letters 197 


wish that all men could be free, while I suppose you do 
not. Yet, I have neither adopted nor proposed any 
measure which is not consistent with even your view, 
provided you are for the Union. I suggested compen- 
sated emancipation, to which you replied you wished 
not to be taxed to buy negroes. But I had not asked 
you to be taxed to buy negroes, except in such way as to 
save you from greater taxation to save the Union exclu- 
sively by other means. 

You dislike the Emancipation Proclamation, and per- 
haps would have it retracted. You say it is unconsti- 
tutional. I think differently. I think the Constitu- 
tion invests its commander-in-chief with the law of war 
in time of war. The most that can be said —if so 
much — is that slaves are property. Is there — has 
there ever been — any question that, by the law of war, 
property, both of enemies and friends, may be taken 
when needed? And is it not needed whenever taking it 
helps us, or hurts the enemy? Armies, the world over, 
destroy enemies’ property when they cannot use it; 
and even destroy their own to keep it from the enemy. 
Civilized belligerents do all in their power to help 
themselves or hurt the enemy, except a few things re- 
garded as barbarous or cruel. Among the exceptions 
are the massacre of vanquished foes and noncombatants, 
male and female. 

But the Proclamation, as law, either is valid or is not 
valid. If it is not valid, it needs no retraction. If it 
is valid, it cannot be retracted any more than the dead 
can be brought to life. Some of you profess to think 
its retraction would operate favorably for the Union. 
Why better after the retraction than before the issue? 


198 Abraham Lincoln 


There was more than a year and a half of trial to sup- 
press the rebellion before the proclamation issued; the 
last one hundred days of which passed under an explicit 
notice that it was coming, unless averted by those in 
revolt returning to their allegiance. The war has cer- 
tainly progressed as favorably for us since the issue of 
the proclamation as before. 

I know, as fully as one can know the opinions of others, 
that some of the commanders of our armies in the field, 
who have given us our most important successes, believe 
the emancipation policy and the use of the colored 
troops constitute the heaviest blow yet dealt to the 
rebellion, and that at least one of these important suc- 
cesses could not have been achieved when it was, but 
for the aid of black soldiers. Among the commanders 
holding these views are some who have never had any 
affinity with what is called abolitionism, or with Re- 
publican party politics, but who hold them purely as 
military opinions. I submit these opinions as being 
entitled to some weight against the objections often 
urged that emancipation and arming the blacks are 
unwise as military measures, and were not adopted as 
such in good faith. 

You say you will not fight to free negroes. Some of 
them seem willing to fight for you; but no matter. 
Fight you, then, exclusively, to save the Union. I 
issued the Proclamation on purpose to aid you in saving 
the Union. Whenever you shall have conquered all 
resistance to the Union, if I shall urge you to continue 
fighting, it will be an apt time then for you to declare you 
will not fight to free negroes. 

I thought that in your struggle for the Union, to 


Addresses and Letters 199 


whatever extent the negroes should cease helping the 
enemy, to that extent it weakened the enemy in his 
resistance to you. Do you think differently? I 
thought that whatever negroes can be got to do as 
soldiers, leaves just so much less for white soldiers to do 
in saving the Union. Does it appear otherwise to you? 
But negroes, like other people, act upon motives. Why 
should they do anything for us if we will do nothing 
for them? If they stake their lives for us they must be 
prompted by the strongest motive, even the promise of 
freedom. And the promise, being made, must be kept. 
The signs look better. The Father of Waters again 
goes unvexed to the sea. Thanks to the great North- 
west for it. Nor yet wholly to them. Three hundred 
miles up they met New England, Empire, Keystone, 
and Jersey, hewing their way right and left. The sunny 
South, too, in more colors than one, also lent a hand. 
On the spot, their part of the history was jotted down 
in black and white. The job was a great national one, 
and let none be banned who bore an honorable part in 
it. And while those who have cleared the great river 
may well be proud, even that is not all. It is hard to 
say that anything has been more bravely and well done 
than at Antietam, Murfreesboro, Gettysburg, and on 
many fields of lesser note. Nor must Uncle Sam’s 
webfeet be forgotten. At all the watery margins they 
have been present. Not only on the deep sea, the broad 
bay, and the rapid river, but also up the narrow, muddy 
bayou, and wherever the ground was a little damp, they 
have been and made their tracks. Thanks to all: for 
the great republic — for the principle it lives by and 
keeps alive — for man’s vast future — thanks to all. 


200 Abraham Lincoln 


Peace does not appear so distant as it did. I hope it 
will come soon, and come to stay ; and so come as to be 
worth the keeping in all future time. It will then have 
been proved that among free men there can be no suc- 
cessful appeal from the ballot to the bullet, and that 
they who take such appeal are sure to lose their case 
and pay the cost. And then there will be some black 
men who can remember that with silent tongue, and 
clenched teeth, and steady eye, and well-poised bayonet, 
they have helped mankind on to this great consumma- 
tion, while I fear there will be some white ones unable 
to forget that with malignant heart and deceitful speech 
they strove to hinder it. 

Still, let us not be oversanguine of a speedy final 
triumph. Let us be quite sober. Let us diligently 
apply the means, never doubting that a just God, in His 
own good time, will give us the rightful result. 

Yours very truly, 
A. LINCOLN 


Letters to James H. Hackett 


Hackett published the first of these letters and Lincoln 
was attacked in some newspapers for what was considered 
his crude taste. His genuine appreciation of Shakespeare 
was, unquestionably, much greater than that of those who 
belittled him. The tragedy of Macbeth seemed to impress 
him, for it is related that a few days before his death he read 
aloud Macbeth’s speech to Lady Macbeth including the 


famous lines, 
Dunean is in his grave; 


After life’s fitful fever he sleeps well. 


The second letter reveals much of the sensitive side of 
Lincoln. 


Addresses and Letters 201 


Executive Mansion, Washington, August 17, 1863 

My pear Sir: Months ago I should have acknowl- 
edged the receipt of your book and accompanying kind 
note; and I now have to beg your pardon for not having 
done so. 

For one of my age I have seen very little of the drama. 
The first presentation of Falstaff I ever saw was yours 
here, last winter or spring. Perhaps the best compli- 
ment I can pay is to say, as I truly can, I am very 
anxious to see it again. Some of Shakespeare’s plays 
I have never read; while others I have gone over 
perhaps as frequently as any unprofessional reader. 
Among the latter are “Lear,” ‘ Richard III,” “Henry 
VIII,” “Hamlet,” and especially ‘‘Macbeth.” I 
think nothing equals ‘‘ Macbeth.” It is wonderful. 

Unlike you gentlemen of the profession, I think the 
soliloquy in ‘‘Hamlet’”’ commencing “Oh, my offense is 
rank,” surpasses that commencing “To be or not to be.”’ 
But pardon this small attempt at criticism. I should 
like to hear you pronounce the opening speech of 
Richard III. Will you not soon visit Washington 
again? If you do, please call and let me make your 


personal acquaintance. Yours truly, 


A. LINCOLN 


Executive Mansion, Washington, November 2, 1863 
James H. Hackett. 

My pgAR Sir: Yours of October 22 is received, as 
also was in due course that of October 3. I look for- 
ward with pleasure to the fulfillment of the promise 
made in the former to visit Washington the following 
winter and to “call.” 


202 Abraham Lincoln 


Give yourself no uneasiness on the subject mentioned 
in that of the 22d. 

My note to you I certainly did not expect to see in 
print; yet I have not been much shocked by the news- 
paper comments uponit. Those comments constitute a 
_ fair specimen of what has occurred to me through life. 
I have endured a great deal of ridicule without much 
malice; and have received a great deal of kindness, not 
quite free from ridicule. I am used to it. 

Yours truly, 
A. LINCOLN 


The Gettysburg Address 


No greater mistake could be made than to consider this 
classic work as an isolated thing. On the contrary, the 
beauty and dignity of it were wrought out and fought out 
through almost three years of a war that tested and molded 
the character that we revere in Lincoln. Never a man of 
many words, on this occasion he is almost reticent. The 
oceasion was the dedication of the Gettysburg battlefield as a 
national cemetery. The orator of the day was Edward 
Everett, whose long and polished oration is now forgotten. 
The ‘‘few remarks” of Lincoln, which he read from a paper, 
fell upon the vast crowd like a benediction; they have been 
cherished ever since as a lofty expression of fine thought. 


[November 19, 1863] 


Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought 
forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in 
Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men 
are created equal. 

Now we are engaged in a great civil war; testing 
whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so 


STATUE oF LINCOLN BY DANIEL CHESTER FRENCH, LINCOLN, 
NEBRASKA. 


LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY OF | 
URBANA 2: 


. 


Addresses and Letters 203 


dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great 
battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a 
portion of that field, as a final resting place for those 
who here gave their lives that that nation might live. 
It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. 

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can 
not consecrate — we can not hallow —this ground. 
The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here 
have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or 
detract. The world will little note, nor long remember 
what we say here, but it can never forget what they did 
here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated 
- here to the unfinished work which they who fought 
here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for 
us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining 
before us — that from these honored dead we take 
increased devotion to that cause for which they gave 
the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly 
resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — 
that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of 
freedom — and that government of the people, by the 
people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. 


Letter to Salmon P. Chase 


Secretary Chase never admitted, as Secretary Seward did, 
that, ‘‘ Lincoln is the best of us.’’ He continued to hope and 
plan for the Republican nomination. Early in 1864 the 
activities of his supporters became so much a matter of public 
discussion that Chase wrote Lincoln repudiating some phases 
of it. This is Lincoln’s reply. When Chase’s own state, 
Ohio, declared for Lincoln’s renomination, Chase withdrew. 
Senator Pomeroy had started the ‘‘boom”’ with a circular. 
A few months later, when Chase resigned, Lincoln refusing 


204 Abraham Lincoln 


any longer to coax him, let him go. Upon the death of Chief 
Justice Taney, Lincoln named Chase for the vacancy and it 
was Chase who swore him in for his second term. 


Executive Mansion, Washington, February 29, 1864 
Hon. Secretary of the Treasury. 

My pear Sir: I would have taken time to answer 
yours of the 2d sooner, only that I did not suppose any 
evil could result from the delay, especially as, by a note, 
I promptly acknowledged the receipt of yours, and 
promised a fuller answer. Now, on consideration, I 
find there is really very little to say. My knowledge 
of Mr. Pomeroy’s letter having been made public came - 
to me only the day you wrote, but I had, in spite of 
myself, known of its existence several days before. I 
have not yet read it, and I think I shall not. I was not 
shocked or surprised by the appearance of the letter, 
because I had had knowledge of Mr. Pomeroy’s com- 
mittee, and of secret issues which I supposed came from 
it, and of secret agents who I supposed were sent out by 
it, for several weeks. I have known just as little of 
these things as my friends have allowed me to know. 
They bring the documents to me, but I do not read 
them ; they tell me what they think fit to tell me, but I 
do not inquire for more. I fully concur with you that 
neither of us can be justly held responsible for what 
our respective friends may do without our instigation or 
countenance; and I assure you, as you have assured me, 
that no assault has been made upon you by my instiga- 
tion or with my countenance. Whether you shall re- 
main at the head of the Treasury Department is a ques- 
tion which I will not allow myself to consider from any 


Addresses and Letters 205 


standpoint other than my judgment of the public serv- 
ice, and, in that view, I do not perceive occasion for a 
change. 
Yours truly, 
A. LINCOLN 


Letter to A. G. Hodges 


Colonel Albert Gallatin Hodges had, with Governor Bram- 
lette and Senator Dixon, protested against the recruiting of 
negro troops in their state, Kentucky. This convincing de- 
fense of emancipation as a war measure should be read in 
connection with the letter to Horace Greeley (p. 168). The 
thought in the last paragraph seemed to take hold of Lincoln’s 
mind, for he developed it a year later in the Second Inaugural. 


Executive Mansion, Washington, April 4, 1864 
A. G. Hodges, Esq., Frankfort, Kentucky. 

My DEAR Srr: You ask me to put in writing the 
substance of what I verbally said the cther day in your 
presence, to Governor Bramlette and Senator Dixon. 
It was about as follows: 

“Tam naturally antislavery. If slavery is not wrong, 
nothing is wrong. I cannot remember when I did not 
so think and feel, and yet I had never understood that 
the presidency conferred upon me an unrestricted right 
to act officially upon this judgment and feeling. It was 
in the oath I took that I would, to the best of my ability, 
preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the 
United States. I could not take the office without 
taking the oath. Nor was it my view that I might take 
an oath to get power, and break the oath in using the 
power. I understood, too, that in ordinary civil ad- 
ministration this oath even forbade me to practically 


206 Abraham Lincoln 


indulge my primary abstract judgment on the moral 
question of slavery. I had publicly declared this many 
times, and in many ways. And I aver that, to this 
day, I have done no official act in mere deference to my 
abstract judgment and feeling on slavery. 

“‘T did understand, however, that my oath to pre- 
serve the Constitution to the best of my ability imposed 
upon me the duty of preserving, by every indispensable 
means, that government, that nation, of which that 
Constitution was the organic law. Was it possible to 
lose the nation and yet preserve the Constitution? 

“By general law, life and limb must be protected, yet 
often a limb must be amputated to save a life, but a 
life is never wisely given to save a limb. I felt that 
measures, otherwise unconstitutional, might become 
lawful by becoming indispensable to the preservation 
of the Constitution through the preservation of the 
nation. Right or wrong, I assume this ground, and 
now avow it. I could not feel that, to the best of my 
ability, I had even tried to preserve the Constitution 
if, to save slavery or any minor matter, I should per- 
mit the wreck of government, country, and Constitu- 
tion all together. 

“When, early in the war, General Frémont attempted 
military emancipation, I forbade it, because I did not 
then think it an indispensable necessity. 

“When, a little later, General Cameron, then Secre- 
tary of War, suggested the arming of the blacks, I ob- 
jected, because I did not yet think it an indispensable 
necessity. | 

“When, still later again, General Hunter attempted 
military emancipation, I again forbade it, because 


: 


Addresses and Letters 207 


I did not yet think the indispensable necessity had 
come. 

“When in March, and May, and July, 1862, I made 
earnest and successive appeals to the border States to 
favor compensated emancipation, I believed the in- 
dispensable necessity for military emancipation and 
arming the blacks would come, unless averted by that 
measure. 

“They declined the proposition, and I was, in my best 
judgment, driven to the alternative of either surrender- 
ing the Union, and with it the Constitution, or of laying 
strong hand upon the colored element. I chose the 
latter. In choosing it I hoped for greater gain than 
loss, but of this I was not entirely confident. 

“More than a year of trial now shows no loss by it 
in our foreign relations, none in our home popular 
sentiment, none in our white military force, no loss by 
it anyhow or anywhere. On the contrary, it shows a 
gain of quite a hundred and thirty thousand soldiers, 
seamen, and laborers. These are palpable facts, about 
which, as facts, there can be no caviling. We have the 
men, and we could not have had them without the 
measure. 

“And now let any Union man, who complains of 
the measure, test himself by writing down in one line 
that he is for subduing the rebellion by force of arms, 
and in the next that he is for taking these hundred 
and thirty thousand men from the Union side, and 
placing them where they would be but for the meas- 
ure which he condemns. If he cannot face his case 
so stated, it is only because he cannot face the truth.” 

I add a word which was not in the verbal conversa- 


208 Abraham Lincoln 


tion. In telling this tale I attempt no compliment to 
my own sagacity ; I claim not to have controlled events, 
but confess plainly that events have controlled me. 
Now, at the end of three years’ struggle, the nation’s 
condition is not what either party or any man devised 
or expected. 

God alone can claim it. Whither it is tending seems 
plain. If God now wills the removal of a great wrong, 
and wills also that we of the North, as well as you of the 
South, shall pay fairly for our complicity in that wrong, 
impartial history will find therein new cause to attest 
and revere the justice and goodness of God. 

Yours truly, 
A. LINCOLN 


Two Telegrams to the Family 


Sept. 21, 1863 
Mrs. A. Lincoln 


Fifth Avenue Hotel, New York. 

The air is so clear and cool and apparently healthy 
that I would be glad for you to come. Nothing very 
particular but I would be glad to see you and Tad. 

A. LINCOLN 


April 28, 1864 
Mrs. A. Lincoln, New York. 
The draft will go to you. Tell Tad the goats and 
father are very well, especially the goats. 
A. LINCOLN 


Letter to General U. S. Grant 


After the victory at Vicksburg, Grant was summoned to 
take charge of the broken army of Rosecrans at Chattanooga. 


Addresses and Letters 209 


Here he, with Sherman and Thomas, on November 238, 24, 25, 
won a decisive victory. Next February, Congress revived 
the rank of Lieutenant-General, and Grant was given this 
supreme post of commanding all of the armies of the United 
States. That Lincoln had complete confidence in him, this 
letter will show. 


Executive Mansion, Washington, April 30, 1864 
LIEUTENANT-GENERAL GRANT: Not expecting to see 
you again before the spring campaign opens, I wish to 
express in this way my entire satisfaction with what you 
have done up to this time, so far as I understand it. 
The particulars of your plans I neither know nor seek to 
know. You are vigilant and self-reliant; and, pleased 
with this, I wish not to obtrude any constraints or re- 
straints upon you. While I am very anxious that any 
great disaster or capture of our men in great numbers 
shall be avoided, I know these points are less likely to 
escape your attention than they would be mine. If 
there is anything wanting which is within my power to 
give, do not fail to let me know it. And now, with a 

brave army and a just cause, may God sustain you. 

Yours very truly, 
A. LINCOLN 


Telegram to General U. S. Grant 


The appalling loss of life in Grant’s campaign of 1864— 
at the Wilderness, Spottsylvania, Cold Harbor, and Petersburg 
— threw the North once more into despair, and shook the 
confidence in Grant. Lincoln, despite all, never lost faith in 
him. 

August 17, 1864 

LIEUTENANT-GENERAL GRANT, City Point, Va.: I 
have seen your dispatch expressing your unwillingness 


210 Abraham Lincoln 


to break your hold where you are. Neither am I 
willing. Hold on with a bulldog grip, and chew and 
choke as much as possible. 

A. LINCOLN 


Letter to Mrs. Bixby 


All the world knows this tender letter of the President to 
an afflicted mother. 


Executive Mansion, Washington, November 21, 1864 
Mrs. Bixby, Boston, Mass. 

Dear Mapam: I have been shown in the files of the 
War Department a statement of the Adjutant-General 
of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons 
who have died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel 
how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine 
which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a 
loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from ten- 
dering to you the consolation that may be found in the 
thanks of the republic they died to save. I pray that 
our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your 
bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory 
of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be 
yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of 
freedom. 

Yours very sincerely and respectfully, 

ABRAHAM LINCOLN 


Letter to General Grant 


Robert Todd Lincoln was the oldest of Lincoln’s children. 
Unlike ‘‘Tad,’’ he did not see a great deal of his father during 
the war, for he was a student at Harvard. He later served 


Addresses and Letters 211 


as Secretary of War under President Garfield, and Ambassa- 
dor to England under Harrison. He recently (1923) greeted 
Lloyd George on the latter’s visit to the United States. 


Executive Mansion, Washington, January 19, 1865 
LIEUTENANT-GENERAL GRANT: Please read and 
answer this letter as though I was not President, but 
only a friend. My son, now in his twenty-second year, 
having graduated at Harvard, wishes to see something 
of the war before it ends. I do not wish to put him in 
the ranks, nor yet to give him a commission, to which 
those who have already served long are better entitled, 
and better qualified to hold. Could he, without embar- 
rassment to you or detriment to the service, go into your 
military family with some nominal rank, I, and not the 
public, furnishing his necessary means? If no, say so 
without the least hesitation, because I am as anxious 
and as deeply interested that you shall not be encum- 
bered as you can be yourself. 
Yours truly, 
A. LINCOLN 


Second Inaugural Address 


Early in August, 1864, Lincoln and other leaders despaired 
of his reélection. But the victories of Farragut at Mobile, 
Sherman at Atlanta, and Sheridan in the Shenandoah silenced 
the ‘‘war is a failure’’ talk and Lincoln was elected with 
an electoral vote of 212 to McClellan’s 21. 

The more one studies this Second Inaugural, the keener 
is the regret that the man who bore malice toward none was 
not spared to bind up the nation’s wounds. In commenting 
upon the speech Lincoln said, ‘‘I expect it to wear as well as, 
perhaps better than, anything I have written.’’ Competent 
opinion today confirms this judgment. 


212 Abraham Lincoln 


[March 4, 1865] 

FELLOW COUNTRYMEN: At this second appearing 
to take the oath of the presidential office, there is less oc- 
casion for an extended address than there was at the first. 
Then a statement, somewhat in detail, of a course to be 
pursued, seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the ex- 
piration of four years, during which public declarations 
have been constantly called forth on every point and 
phase of the great contest which still absorbs the at- 
tention and engrosses the energies of the nation, little 
that is new could be presented. The progress of our 
arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well 
known to the public as to myself; and it is, I trust, 
reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With 
high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is 
ventured. 

On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago, 
all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending 
civil war. All dreaded it —all sought to avert it. 
While the inaugural address was being delivered from 
this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union with- 
out war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to 
destroy it without war—seeking to dissolve the 
Union, and divide effects, by negotiation. Both 
parties deprecated war; but one of them would make 
war rather than let the nation survive; and the other 
would accept war rather than let it perish. And the 
war came. 

One eighth of the whole population were colored 
slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but 
localized in the southern part of it. These slaves con- 
stituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that 


Addresses and Letters 218 


this interest was, somehow, the cause of the war. To 
strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was 
the object for which the insurgents would rend the 
Union, even by war; while the government claimed no 
right to do more than to restrict the territorial en- 
largement of it. 

Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or 
the duration which it has already attained. Neither 
anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease 
with, or even before, the conflict itself should cease. 
Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less 
fundamental and astounding. Both read the same 
Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes His 
ald against the other. 

It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask 
a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the 
sweat of other men’s faces; but let us judge not, that 
we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be 
answered — that of neither has been answered fully. 

The Almighty has his own purposes. ‘‘ Woe unto the 
world because of offenses! for it must needs be that 
offenses come; but woe to that man by whom the 
offense cometh.” 1 If we shall suppose that American 
slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence 
of God, must needs come, but which, having continued 
through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, 
and that He gives to both North and South this terrible 
war, as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, 
shall we discern therein any departure from those 
divine attributes which the believers in a living God 


1 See Matthew xviii, 7. 


214 Abraham Lincoln 


always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope —fer- 
vently do we pray — that this mighty scourge of war 
may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it 
continue until all the wealth piled by the bondman’s 
two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be 
sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the 
lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as 
was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be 
said, ‘‘ The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous 
altogether.” 

With malice toward none; with charity for all; with 
firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, 
let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up 
the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have 
borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan — 
to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and 
lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations. 


The Last Public Address 


The news of Lee’s surrender reached Washington on April 
10, and a crowd, as usual, flocked to the White House. Lin- 
coln promised to have something to say on the following 
evening, and at that time read this address. His mind had 
turned from war to reconstruction. How little he thought 
of resentment toward the South his words will show. Four 
days later he was dead. 


[April 11, 1865] 

, We meet this evening not in sorrow, but in gladness of 
heart. The evacuation of Petersburg and Richmond, 
and the surrender of the principal insurgent army, give 
hope of a righteous and speedy peace, whose joyous 
expression cannot be restrained. In the midst of this, 


a) 
Photo by Peet Bros., Washington, D.C. 


STaTuE OF LINCOLN By GuTzoN BorGLuum, NEwaRK, NEw JERSEY, 


“UBRARY 
UNIVERSITY Of LINO 7 eS, ay 
| URBANA 


Addresses and Letters 215 


however, He from whom all blessings flow must not be 
forgotten. A call for a national thanksgiving is being 
prepared, and will be duly promulgated. Nor must 
those whose harder part give us the cause of rejoicing be 
overlooked. Their honors must not be parceled out 
with others. I myself was near the front, and had 
the high pleasure of transmitting much of the good 
news to you; but no part of the honor for plan or 
execution is mine. To General Grant, his skillful 
officers and brave men, all belongs. The gallant navy 
stood ready, but was not in reach to take active part. 
By these recent successes the reinauguration of the 
national authority — reconstruction — which has had a 
large share of thought from the first, is pressed much 
more closely upon our attention. It is fraught with 
great difficulty. Unlike a case of war between inde- 
pendent nations, there is no authorized organ for us 
to treat with — no one man has authority to give up 
the rebellion for any other man. We simply must begin 
with and mold from disorganized and discordant ele- 
ments. Nor is it a small additional embarrassment 
that we, the loyal people, differ among ourselves as to 
the mode, manner, and measure of reconstruction. As 
a general rule, I abstain from reading the reports of 
attacks upon myself, wishing not to be provoked by 
that to which I cannot properly offer an answer. In 
spite of this precaution, however, it comes to my 
knowledge that I am much censured for some supposed 
agency in setting up and seeking to sustain the new 
state government of Louisiana. In this I have done 
just so much as, and no more than, the public knows. 
In the Annual Message of December, 1863, and in the 


216 Abraham Lincoln 


accompanying proclamation, I presented a plan of 
reconstruction, as the phrase goes, which I promised, if 
adopted by any state, should be acceptable to and 
sustained by the executive government of the nation. 
I distinctly stated that this was not the only plan which 
might possibly be acceptable, and I also distinctly 
protested that the executive claimed no right to say 
when or whether members should be admitted to seats 
in Congress for such states. This plan was in advance 
submitted to the then cabinet, and distinctly approved 
by every member of it. One of them suggested that I 
should then and in that connection apply the Emanci- 
pation Proclamation to the theretofore excepted parts 
of Virginia and Louisiana; that I should drop the 
suggestion about apprenticeship for freed people, and 
that I should omit the protest against my own power 
in regard to the admission of members to Congress. 
But even he approved every part and parcel of the plan 
which has since been employed or touched by the 
action of Louisiana. . 

The new constitution of Louisiana, declaring emanci- 
pation for the whole state, practically applies the 
proclamation to the part previously excepted. It does 
not adopt apprenticeship for freed people, and it is 
silent, as it could not well be otherwise, about the ad- 
mission of members to Congress. So that, as it applied 
to Louisiana, every member of the cabinet fully ap- 
proved the plan. The message went to Congress, and 
I received many commendations of the plan, written 
and verbal, and not a single objection to it from any 
professed emancipationist came to my knowledge until 
after the news reached Washington that the people of 


Addresses and Letters 217 


Louisiana had begun to move in accordance with it. 
From about July, 1862, I had corresponded with dif- 
ferent persons supposed to be interested [in] seeking a 
reconstruction of a state government for Louisiana. 
When the message of 1863, with the plan before men- 
tioned, reached New Orleans, General Banks wrote 
me that he was confident that the people, with his mili- 
tary codperation, would reconstruct substantially on 
that plan. I wrote to him and some of them to try it. 
They tried it, and the result is known. Such has been 
my only agency in getting up the Louisiana government. 
As to sustaining it, my promise is out, as before stated. 
But as bad promises are better broken than kept, I 
shall treat this as a bad promise, and break it when- 
ever I shall be convinced that keeping it is adverse to 
the public interest; but I have not yet been so con- 
vinced. I have been shown a letter on this subject, 
supposed to be an able one, in which the writer expresses 
regret that my mind has not seemed to be definitely 
fixed on the question whether the seceded states, so 
called, are in the Union or out of it. It would perhaps 
add astonishment to his regret were he to learn that 
since I have found professed Union men endeavoring 
to make that question, I have purposely forborne any 
public expression upon it. As appears to me, that ques- 
tion has not been, nor yet is, a practically material one, 
and that any discussion of it, while it thus remains 
practically immaterial, could have no effect other than 
the mischievous one of dividing our friends. As yet, 
whatever it may hereafter become, that question is bad 
as the basis of a controversy, and good for nothing at 
all—a merely pernicious abstraction. We all agree 


218 Abraham Lincoln 


that the seceded states, so called, are out of their proper 
practical relation with the Union, and that the sole 
object of the government, civil and military, in regard 
to those states is to again get them into that proper 
practical relation. I believe that it is not only possible, 
but in fact easier, to do this without deciding or even 
considering whether these states have ever been out of 
the Union, than with it. Finding themselves safely 
at home, it would be utterly immaterial whether they 
had ever been abroad. Let us all join in doing the acts 
necessary to restoring the proper practical relations 
between these states and the Union, and each forever 
after innocently indulge his own opinion whether in 
doing the acts he brought the states from without into 
the Union, or only gave them proper assistance, they 
never having been out of it. The amount of con- 
stituency, so to speak, on which the new Louisiana 
government rests, would be more satisfactory to all if 
it contained 50,000, or 30,000, or even 20,000, instead 
of only about 12,000, as it does. It is also unsatis- 
factory to some that the elective franchise is not given 
to the colored man. I would myself prefer that it were 
now conferred on the very intelligent, and on those 
who serve our cause as soldiers. Still, the question is 
not whether the Louisiana government, as it stands, is 
quite all that is desirable. The question is, Will it be 
wiser to take it as it is and help to improve it, or to 
reject and disperse it? Can Louisiana be brought into 
proper practical relation with the Union sooner by 
sustaining or by discarding her new state government? 4 


1 A small vindictive Senate group had blocked Lincoln’s plans for 
Louisiana. 


Addresses and Letters 215 


Some 12,000 voters in the heretofore slave state of 
Louisiana have sworn allegiance to the Union, assumed 
to be the rightful political power of the state, held 
elections, organized a state government, adopted a 
free-state constitution, giving the benefit of public 
schools equally to black and white, and empowering 
the legislature to confer the elective franchise upon 
the colored man. Their legislature has already voted 
to ratify the constitutional amendment recently passed 
by Congress, abolishing slavery throughout the nation. 
These 12,000 persons are thus fully committed to the 
Union and to perpetual freedom in the state — com- 
mitted to the very things, and nearly all the things, the 
nation wants — and they ask the nation’s recognition 
and its assistance to make good their committal. 

Now, if we reject and spurn them, we do our utmost 
to disorganize and disperse them. We, in effect, say to 
the white man: You are worthless, or worse; we will 
neither help you nor be helped by you. To the blacks 
we say: This cup of liberty which these, your old 
masters, hold to your lips we will dash from you, and 
leave you to the chances of gathering the spilled and 
scattered contents in some vague and undefined when, 
where, and how. If this course, discouraging and 
paralyzing both white and black, has any tendency to 
bring Louisiana into proper practical relations with the 
Union, I have so far been unable to perceive it. If, on 
the contrary, we recognize and sustain the new govern- 
ment of Louisiana, the converse of all this is made true. 
We encourage the hearts and nerve the arms of the 
12,000 to adhere to their work, and argue for it, and 
proselyte for it, and fight for it, and feed it, and grow it, 


220 Abraham Lincoln 


and ripen it to a complete success. The colored man, 
too, in seeing all united for him, is inspired with vigi- 
lance, and energy, and daring, to the same end. Grant 
that he desires the elective franchise, will he not attain 
it sooner by saving the already advanced steps toward 
it than by running backward over them? Concede 
that the new government of Louisiana is only to 
what it should be as the egg is to the fowl, we shall 
sooner have the fowl by hatching the egg than by 
smashing it. 

Again, if we reject Louisiana we also reject one vote in 
favor of the proposed amendment to the national Con- 
stitution. 'To meet this proposition it has been argued 
that no more than three fourths of those states which 
have not attempted secession are necessary to validly 
ratify the amendment. I do not commit myself 
against this further than to say that such a ratification 
would be questionable, and sure to be persistently 
questioned, while a ratification by three fourths of all 
the states would be unquestioned and unquestionable. 
I repeat the question: Can Louisiana be brought into 
proper practical relation with the Union sooner by 
sustaining or by discarding her new state government? 
What has been said of Louisiana will apply generally 
to other states. And yet so great peculiarities pertain 
to each state, and such important and sudden changes 
occur in the same state, and withal so new and un- 
precedented is the whole case that no exclusive and in- 
flexible plan can safely be prescribed as to details and 
collaterals. Such exclusive and inflexible plan would 
surely become a new entanglement. Important prin- 
ciples may and must be inflexible. In the present situa- 


Addresses and Letters 221 


tion, as the phrase goes, it may be my duty to make 
some new announcement to the people of the South. I 
am considering, and shall not fail to act when satisfied 
that action will be proper. 


Abraham Lincoln 


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QUESTIONS FOR STUDY AND REPORT 
ANNOUNCEMENT OF CANDIDACY 


1. In what ways does this announcement show “local 
color”? How can you tell to which party Lincoln belonged ? 

2. What was Lincoln doing in 1832? 

3. In national affairs what was the fate of the Bank in this 
year? 

4. What important incident with regard to the tariff oc- 
curred in 1832? 

5. What is meant by the internal improvement system? 

6. Perhaps there is an abandoned canal somewhere in your 
neighborhood dating back to this time. Can you find one? 


ADDRESS TO THE PEOPLE OF SANGAMON 
COUNTY 


1. Read the letters to Greeley, McClellan, and Grant, 
expressing the willingness, as this announcement does, to 
give up opinions as soon as they are discovered to be erro- 
neous. 

2. Is this willingness a sign of strength, or weakness? 
Why? 

POLITICAL VIEWS IN 1836 


1. Can you see in this any sign that Lincoln had learned 
anything from his defeat in 1832? 

2. I shall be governed by their will. What were the people 
of the West demanding at this time? 

3. Did these demands win in the presidential election of 
this year (1836)? In 1840? 

4. In what way is the language of this letter an improve- 
ment over the first announcement? 

5. Suppose you are a candidate for some office in your 
school. Write a letter to the school paper, in which you 
‘*show your hand.”’ 

225 


226 Questions for Study and Report 


PROTEST AGAINST SLAVERY 


1. What was Lincoln’s attitude toward abolition? Find 
his discussion of the negro in the Peoria speech (p. 12); in 
his first debate with Douglas (p. 54); in his Columbus 
speech (p. 83); in the Cooper Union address (p. 109); in 
his First Inaugural (p. 142). 

2. When and how did Congress get power ‘‘to interfere 
with slavery in the different states’’ ? 


LETTERS TO HERNDON AND JOHNSTON 


1. Give your judgment of these as letters. Could they 
have been easily understood by the men for whom they were 
intended? Do they accomplish their purpose? Do they 
stick to the point? Do they keep a basis of friendliness? 

2. What glimpses do these letters give you of Lincoln? 
What do you think of his method of treating Johnston? 

3. Write a letter to a student in a lower class who is dis- 
couraged in his work. Give some practical advice for master- 
ing some one subject. 


THE PEORIA SPEECH 


1. Show by quotation how this speech was adjusted to 
the crowd to whom it was spoken. 

2. How does Lincoln clear the ground for his argument? 

3. Give a good instance of his fairness to those who might 
differ with him. 

4. State briefly his idea of self-government. 

5. Give an example of his adroit argument — his skill in 
stealing his opponent’s ‘‘thunder.”’ 

6. Find one excellent example of his broad-mindedness. 

7. What is Lincoln’s idea of an American? Do you 
think it is a good idea? Why, or why not? 

8. Why does he mention Clay and Webster? 

9. Compare his remarks about the Southern people in this 
speech with his address to the South in the Cooper Union 
speech; in the First Inaugural; in the Second Inaugural. 


Questions for Study and Report 227 


10. What is his plan for emancipation? What does he 
say of this in his first debate with Douglas? In the Cooper 
Union speech ? 

11. Compare his remarks about the fugitive slave law with 
his attitude in the First Inaugural. How can you explain 
this position in a man who hated slavery ? 

12. Make a list of opinions in this speech which are later 
used in letters or other speeches. 

13. Prepare an outline for a speech to an unfriendly audi- 
ence. Use your opponent’s arguments as a basis for yours. 
Select a topic of interest to your school or community. De- 
liver the talk to your class. 


LETTER TO GEORGE ROBERTSON 


Why did Lincoln write a letter as long as this? 
Which parts are aimed at a Kentuckian? 
Which paragraph meets Robertson on his own level? 
Which tries to carry him beyond this? 
Select the parts that show that Lincoln has been closely 
omni ghee the history of slavery. 

6. Which part would Robertson be apt to quote to a friend ? 


Bers wees 


THE SPRINGFIELD SPEECH 


Before reading this, turn to an American history and read 
what it says about the Dred Scott decision and the Lecomp- 
ton Constitution. 

1. Tell exactly what Lincoln wished to do by means of 
this speech. 

2. Does he convince you? Why, or why not? 

3. Do you feel that he is much in earnest or is it the 
usual ‘‘campaign talk’’? What makes you think so? 

4. Give, step by step, the progress of his argument. 

5. Consider the metaphor that he uses. Does it help to 
make his meaning clearer? Is it especially adapted to his 
audience? Why, or why not? 

6. Is he fair to Douglas? Prove what you say by quota- 
tion. 


228 Questions for Study and Report 


7. The Republican Party was but two years old at this 
time and therefore needed a rallying ery. Does Lincoln 
supply this? How? 

8. Lincoln wrote out this speech with great care. Why? 

9. Do you find any improvement in plan or language 
over the Peoria speech? Which do you prefer? Why? 

10. Lincoln’s ‘‘house divided’’ idea was not a policy, but 
merely a prediction. What is the difference? Four months 
later Seward expressed his belief that a conflict was irre- 
pressible. Whose position was more dangerous? Why? 
Or, are the two ideas identical ? 

11. Several prominent antislavery editors favored Doug- 
las in the contest because of his popular sovereignty plan, 
and his unquestioned ability. Supposing that you have 
just heard Lincoln, write to a prominent newspaper, giving 
Linecoln’s claim for support: 

12. Write an editorial such as might have appeared in a 
Republican newspaper of the time commenting on the speech. 

13. Write an editorial such as might have appeared in a 
Democratic newspaper of the time in the North on the same 
subject. 

14. Do the same for an Abolitionist newspaper. 

15. Do the same for a newspaper in South Carolina. 

16. Imagine that you are a reporter attending this con- 
vention. Write a news story. Read it to the class and let 
them judge whether you have leaned toward either side of 
the controversy. 


THE FIRST LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATE 


DouGLAS’sS SPEECH 


1. Douglas uses several of the usual arguments to dis- 
credit a new movement. Where does he try to show that 
the Republicans were unpatriotic? Where does he accuse 
them of opposing the fathers of our country? How does he 
try to link them with the violent extremists of the day? 
Where does he try to make the Republican leaders seem dis- 
reputable? 


Questions for Study and Report 229 


2. What is the main point Douglas is trying to make? 
Do you think he has made it? 


LINCOLN’S REPLY 


1. Is Lincoln wise in keeping his good humor throughout 
his reply? Why? 

2. In what respect is the general tone of his speech better 
than Douglas’s? 

3. To which of Douglas’s charges does he make reply? 
Do you consider these replies satisfactory ? 

4. What is his answer to the charge that he (Lincoln) 
is opposing the teachings of the fathers of our country? 

5. How does he deal with ‘‘ popular sovereignty’”’? 

6. When does he return to the direct charge that he made 
against Douglas in the Springfield speech? 

7. Explain the quotation from the Washington Union. 
Does Lincoln score against Douglas in this point ? 

8. Write an editorial based upon this debate for a Dem- 
ocratic newspaper of the time. 

9. Write one for a Republican paper. 

10. Write a conversation between two Illinois farmers 
who heard the debate. Let them talk about “popular sov- 
ereignty,’’ or Dred Scott, or ‘‘the Fathers,’ and let them 
give their impressions of the two speakers. 


THE COLUMBUS SPEECH 


1. How does this speech compare in confidence, force, and 
eloquence, with the Peoria speech? With the Springfield 
speech ? 

2. What is the purpose of the whole speech? Do you 
think it achieves this purpose? 

3. Select the part or parts that you think an audience 
would remember longest. Justify your choice. 

4. What is your opinion of the way Lincoln answered 
Douglas’s argument that the men of the Revolution were 
in favor of popular sovereignty ? 

5. According to Lincoln, what is theimportant part of his- 
tory that Douglas omitted? Summarize Lincoln’s argument. 


230 Questions for Study and Report 


6. How does he oppose Douglas’s plan to make popular 
sovereignty and the Dred Scott decision work together? 
Who has the better of the argument? Why? 

7. Where does he support the main point of his Spring- 
field speech? | 

8. Do you agree with Douglas or with Lincoln on the 
argument about the African slave trade? Why? 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY WRITTEN FOR J. W. FELL 


1. A ‘‘self-made”’ man is apt to be painfully shy and con- 
scious of inferiority, or crudely self-assertive. What indica- 
tions are there in this letter that Lincoln had a decent self- 
respect? What -proof is there that he was modest? Is 
there any humor? 

2. Note that this letter, so sincere in its humility, was 
written less than a year before he was elected president in 
the most serious crisis our country has ever faced. Because 
he could smile at himself, he could endure having others 
smile at him; see his letter to Hackett (p. 200). 

3. What significance is there in the remark the only time 
I have ever been beaten by the people? 


THE COOPER UNION SPEECH 


Before reading this speech you need to know about these: 
The Ordinance of 1787: The land between the Great Lakes 
and the Ohio, by the abandonment of claims by Massachu- 
setts, Connecticut, New York, and Virginia, had become 
the property of the United States. The Northwest Ordi- 
nance of 1787 organized this territory under a governor and 
three judges. The ordinance provided, among other things, 
that slavery should forever be excluded from this district. 
The states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wiscon- 
sin, were later formed out of this land. 


John Brown had in 1856 taken a bloody part in the Kansas 
struggle, murdering five men of a pro-slavery settlement. 
In 1859, impatient with the progress being made toward 
abolition, he hatched a plot to free negroes in Virginia. <Ac- 


Questions for Study and Report 231 


cordingly, with a little band of eighteen faithful followers, 
he seized the United States Arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, and 
then ‘“‘freed’”’ about thirty bewildered slaves. A detachment 
of United States Marines swiftly descended upon Brown and 
either killed or captured every one in his band. Brown was 
tried for treason and hanged. The attempt infuriated the 
South, and called forth unmeasured praise from many ex- 
tremists in the North. The cooler heads, however, rec- 
ognized it as the work of a fanatic, and deplored it. 


The Gunpowder Plot was an attempt by Guy Fawkes and 
about a dozen followers to blow up the House of Parliament 
in the reign of James I. The plot was discovered and the 
conspirators executed. 


Helper’s book was published by a ‘‘poor white’’ of North 
Carolina in 1857. It was called The Impending Crisis and 
by a convincing array of figures showed what a burden slavery 
“was to the South. It attacked slaveholders as ruffians and 
outlaws and urged that they be treated as social outcasts. 


1. What is the ‘‘text’’ that Lincoln adopts for this ad- 
dress? Find Douglas’s statement of it in the first debate. 

2. What is the issue? State Lincoln’s side; Douglas’s. 

3. Is Lincoln’s method of proving his side skillful? Is 
it fair? 

4. Summarize his argument concerning ‘‘the fathers.” 

5. Summarize his refutation of the statement that the 
amendments to the Constitution forbade Federal control 
of slavery in the territories. 

6. Where does the second division of the address begin? 

7. Give Linecoln’s answer to the accusation of section- 
alism. Do you agree with him? 

8. What is his answer to the use of Washington’s warning 
made by the South? 

9. How does he meet the charge that his party is rev- 
olutionary ? 

10. How does he answer the charge of implication in the 
John Brown affair? Do you consider his answer sufficient ? 
Why, or why not? 


232 Questions for Study and Report 


11. Make a simple outline of his argument about the 
John Brown charge. 

12. What is his answer to the threat of secession if con- | 
stitutional rights are denied? 

13. Make a simple outline of this answer. 

14. Summarize his address to the Republicans. What 
is his purpose here? 

15. Make a very simple outline of the whole speech, from 
memory, putting down three main divisions and only the 
most important of the subdivisions. 

16. Summarize the speech in about 150 words. 

17. Select a part of the speech and memorize it. 

18. Imagine that you are city editor of a New York news- 
paper and that Lincoln is to deliver this address to-night. 
Assign one student to ‘‘cover’’ the crowds; another to 
‘‘eover’”’ the speech, itself; another to get an interview with 
a prominent Republican immediately after the meeting; 
another to do the same with a prominent Democrat. As 
city editor, combine these stories in one connected whole. 

19. Write an editorial for the New York Herald (Dem- 
ocratic) dated February 28, 1860 (the day after the address) ; 
write one for the New York Times (Republican, but con- 
servative and in favor of Seward for the presidential nom- 
ination); write one for the New York Tribune (Republican 
and abolitionist). Read these to the class. 

20. After you have heard these editorials, write a letter 
to one of the editors supporting or opposing his view. The 
editor of the Herald was James Gordon Bennett; of the 
Times, Henry J. Raymond; of the Tribune, Horace Greeley. 


LETTER TO THURLOW WEED 


1. What was the political condition of the country at this 
time? 

2. What three points are made in this letter? What is 
Lincoln’s stand upon each? 

3. What is the chief impression that such a letter as this 
would give the country? 


Questions for Study and Report 233 


ADDRESS IN INDEPENDENCE HALL 


Briefly summarize conditions in the country at this time. 
State the main thought of this address. 
What is the message to the South? 
Find in the Peoria speech, the letter to Robertson, the 
answer to Douglas in the first debate, the Columbus speech, 
the First Inaugural, and the Gettysburg address, proof that 
Lincoln “‘never had a feeling politically that did not spring 
from the sentiments embodied in the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence.’’ Can you find any other instance? 

5. This was an unprepared speech. Can you account for 
the clear thought in it? For the fine emotion? 

6. Read this speech and the Gettysburg aloud. Does this 
compare favorably with the Gettysburg? Can you give 
reasons for your choice? 


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THE FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS 


1. How far had the secession movement gone at this 
time ? 

2. State the main purpose of this address. 

3. What note is sounded in the opening? 

4. What is Linecoln’s attitude with regard to states’ 
rights? To the fugitive slave law? To secession? 

5. What, according to Lincoln, are the rights of minori- 
ties? Of majorities? 

6. What is his attitude toward the Supreme Court? 
Why did he feel it necessary to discuss the function of this 
court? 

7. In his judgment, what is the only substantial dispute? 

8. What does he think of the efficacy of war as a eet 
of settling the dispute ? 

9. Summarize Lincoln’s position with regard to amend- 
ments to the Constitution. What are the ways of amending? 

10. What is his idea of the function of the President? 

11. What words are addressed directly to the South? 

12. Give a title to this address that will indicate the main 
idea of it, 


234 Questions for Study and Report 


REPLY TO SEWARD AND LETTER TO 
REVERDY JOHNSON 


The idea of the responsibility of the President was a fixed 
one in Lincoln’s mind. Back in the days when Taylor was 
President (1849-50), Lincoln wrote to Clayton, then Secre- 
tary of State: ‘‘It is fixing for the President the unjust and 
ruinous character of being a mere man of straw. He must 
occasionally say, or seem to say, ‘by the Eternal, I take the 
responsibility.’ ”’ ; 

The student should note instances of Lincoln’s inclination 
to take responsibility. 

1. What information do these give you with respect to 
Lincoln’s character ? 

2. What do you suppose was the effect of each upon the 
recipient ? 


LETTER TO O. H. BROWNING 


1. State the two main points made in this letter. 

2. Wherein does this letter agree with the First Inaugural ? 

3. Does Lincoln’s refusal to be dictator show strength or 
weakness?. Why? 


LETTER TO GENERAL HUNTER 


1. What impression of Hunter’s character do you get from 
this letter ? 

2. How does it add to your understanding of Lincoln? 

3. Compare it with the letter to Herndon (p. 5). 


LETTER TO GENERAL McCLELLAN 


1. What was the military situation at this time? 

2. What mental power does Lincoln show here? How 
would you describe the style of writing? How is it suited 
to the purpose? 

3. Using this letter as a model, write one to a friend who 
has proposed a plan for a trip, or for a course of study, or for 
a method of earning money. 


Questions for Study and Report 235 


LETTER TO REVERDY JOHNSON 


1. What was the situation that called forth this letter? 
2. What trait of Lincoln’s character is shown ? 
3. Do you agree with the policy expressed ? 


LETTER TO HORACE GREELEY 


1. In what stage was Lincoln’s plan for emancipation at 
this time? 

2. What was the military situation? 

3. What is the chief impression made by this letter? 

4. What does the first paragraph accomplish? 

5. Summarize the letter in a single sentence. 

6. How does this letter agree or disagree with the First 
Inaugural ? 

7. How did it probably affect the Abolitionists? The 
Confederate states? The slave states (like Kentucky) that 
had not seceded ? 

8. Why did Lincoln put the preservation of the Union 
before emancipation of the slaves? 


TELEGRAMS TO McCLELLAN 


1. In what ways do these add to your knowledge of the 
characters of Lincoln and McClellan? With whom are you 
in sympathy? Why? 


REPLY TO A COMMITTEE 


1. In what stage was Lincoln’s plan for emancipation at 
this time? 

2. Why didn’t he tell this to the Committee? 

3. What are the objections that he gives to emancipation? 

4. In what way does this reply increase your respect for 
Lincoln ? 

5. Make a simple outline of this paper. 


LETTER TO GENERAL N. P. BANKS 


1. After reading this letter, what is your estimate of Gen- 
eral Banks? 


236 Questions for Study and Report 


2. What is the outstanding characteristic of the letter? 
3. Compare it with the letter to General Hunter. 


LETTER TO CARL SCHURZ 


1. How does this letter increase your knowledge of Lin- 
coln’s character ? 

2. What light does it shed upon his difficulties ? 

3. In what mood was the letter written? What effect was 
it likely to have upon the person to whom it was sent? 


LETTER TO GENERAL McCLERNAND 


1. Read this in connection with the letter to O. H. Brown- 
ing (p. 160), and compare the two in thought. 


LETTER TO THE WORKINGMEN OF MAN- 
CHESTER 


1. What was the situation that called forth this letter? 

2. List the elements of this letter which would make a 
special appeal to the Manchester workingmen. 

3. What is the purpose of the first paragraph? 


LETTER TO GENERAL HOOKER 


1. What is the dominant tone of this letter? 

2. What good advice does Lincoln give Hooker? 

3. How does it help you understand both Hooker and 
Lincoln ? 

4, Can you think of a situation in which a letter similar to 
this might be written ? 


LETTER TO GOVERNOR SEYMOUR 


1. What is there in this letter to prejudice you in Lincoln’s 
favor? 

2. Is there any possible ground on which Governor Sey- 
mour could justify a failure to reply? 

3. Wherein is the letter skillfully adjusted to the recipient ? 


Questions for Study and Report 237 


LETTER TO GENERAL GRANT 


1. How does this add to your estimate of Lincoln? 
2. Compare it with the letters to General Hunter and 
General Banks. 


LETTER TO JAMES C. CONKLING 


This is unquestionably a great letter; it will repay the 
most careful study. 

1. What was the condition of military affairs when this 
was written? 

2. What are the two principal subjects discussed ? 

3. Make a simple outline for the letter, with two main 
headings. 

4. What is achieved by the first paragraph? By the 
second? By that beginning, The signs look better? By that 
beginning, Peace does not appear so distant as it did? 

5. What sentence or sentences do you suppose were after- 
wards quoted by those who heard this letter? 


LETTERS TO JAMES H. HACKETT 


1. What is the picture of Lincoln’s nature that you get 
from these letters ? 

2. What do you think of his preferences in the first 
letter? 

3. How do these letters affect your feeling toward Lincoln? 


THE GETTYSBURG ADDRESS 


1. What was the military situation on November 19, 1863? 

2. In what ways was the battle of Gettysburg important? 

3. In a single sentence, state the central thought of the 
address. 

4. Wherein does this thought agree with that expressed in 
the speech in Independence Hall? 

5. Read this address aloud, omitting those sentences that 
you do not consider essential to the progress of the idea. 
Which can you omit? 


238 Questions for Study and Report 


6. If Lincoln had desired to make a lengthy address, which 
sentences could he have expanded into paragraphs? Why 
didn’t he do so? 

7. Read aloud the last sentence of the Second Inaugural, 
and then the last in the Gettysburg. What do you find? 

8. Memorize this address. 


LETTER TO SALMON P. CHASE 


1. How does this letter affect your estimate of Lincoln 
and Chase? 
2. What, in particular, do you think of the last sentence? 


LETTER TO A. G. HODGES 


1. This letter deserves careful study for its straightforward 
setting down of facts, its logic, and its high moral tone. 
Summarize each paragraph and tell what it accomplishes. 

2. Compare the last paragraph with the Second Inaugural. 

3. I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly 
that events have controlled me. What does Lincoln mean? 
From this statement do you conclude that he was fond of 
theories? Why, or why not? 


TWO TELEGRAMS TO THE FAMILY 


1. What glimpse of family life is here? What do you 
know of Tad? Of Lincoln’s other children? 


THE SECOND INAUGURAL ADDRESS 


1. What was the military situation at this time? 

2. In a letter written in July, 1862, Lincoln said, ‘‘I shall 
do nothing in malice. What I deal with is too vast for ma- 
licious dealing.’’ Do you find in this address any evidence 
of bitterness, any craving for revenge? 

3. What is the main point that Lincoln wished to make? 

4. In view of the years of reconstruction that had to follow, 
was this a good point to make? Why? 

5. What statement in this address summarizes the First 
Inaugural ? 


Questions for Study and Report 239 


6. Before writing the First Inaugural, Lincoln carefully 
studied the speeches of Clay and Webster. What reading 
influenced him, evidently, in the preparation of the Second? 

7. Memorize at least the last sentence of this address. 


THE LAST PUBLIC ADDRESS 


1. What is the main purpose of this address? 

2. Do you think it is significant that Lincoln takes re- 
construction as his topic in a speech to a crowd that is jubilant 
over a military victory? What lght does this shed upon 
Lineoln’s character? Is this address in agreement with 
the Second Inaugural? How? 

3. From this speech do you gather that Lincoln liked to 
discuss theories or to work out practical things ? 

4. What is his plan for Louisiana? If you had been a 
member of Congress, what would you have thought of it? 

5. What does the last paragraph prove about his attitude 
toward the Constitution? 


BIOGRAPHIES FOR SPECIAL REPORT 


Horace Greeley Carl Schurz 

Thurlow Weed Jefferson Davis 
William H. Seward Stephen A. Douglas 
Henry J. Raymond John Brown 

Charles A. Dana Lord Palmerston 
Horatio Seymour William Lloyd Garrison 
Elijah Lovejoy Salmon P. Chase 


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